After the Berlin Wall: A History of the EBRD, Volume 1 by Andrew Kilpatrick

Part I 
Post-Cold War Pioneer

Chapter 1 
A New International 
Development Institution

 Introduction
 Mitterrand’s original proposal for a new institution, the EBRD, to support 
the integration of central and eastern Europe into the European and glob-
al economy was endorsed in early December 1989 at the Strasbourg Europe-
an Council by all 12 EC countries. The speed with which leaders decided to 
create a new international financial institution was unprecedented in Euro-
pean Council history and reflected the urgency of the situation. There was 
no doubt in the minds of the key actors about the potentially grave conse-
quences for Europe of failing to support their eastern neighbours.
 A variety of forces lay behind these events. The old certainties of the 
Cold War had begun to falter with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev as 
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in the mid-1980s and his 
adoption of a reformist stance through perestroika and glasnost in the So-
viet Union. This was followed by the visible abandonment of the Brezhnev 
doctrine and a new-found willingness to allow Soviet satellite states more 
independence, quickly built upon by populations eager to catch up with 
the West, as well as a more open approach to detente and relations with 
western leaders.
 In western Europe too it was a moment of internal change. As envis-
aged under the Treaty of Rome, the EC was embarking on the next stage 
of integration and had begun to set out concrete steps to achieve econom-
ic and monetary union. Political union was also on the table, under which 
lay a schism with the United Kingdom which was to fester and undermine 
European unity. Despite this, there was full agreement that the adoption 

After the Berlin Wall: A History of the EBRD, Volume 1 by Andrew Kilpatrick