The book's remarkable data sources include the author's observations of the day-to-day work of the Commission under Delors and access to key personnel and documents. The author explores the ways in which Delors and his team tried to capitalize upon the complex openings in Europe's political opportunity structures from the mid-1980s. The "1992" programme to complete the Single Market galvanized European energies and contributed to renewed optimism. Maastricht and its sequels have proven less successful.

Jacques Delors and European Integration follows processes around the Maastricht Treaty from inside, observing the complex system of European institutions at work. What kind of turning point will Maastricht turn out to be? The book attempts to reach a conclusion about what, in retrospect, will certainly be seen as one of the most daring experiments at transnational politics of modern times.