Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 106 Introduction Since the end of the Cold War, regional integration has increasingly become an indispensable feature of the global political order. Ginkel and Langenhove(2003) have defined regional integration as the process by which states within a particular region increase their level of interaction with regard to economic, security, political, social and cultural issues. Independent states commit themselves to undertake common goals through regional'alliances' and interactions at the national level (DeLombaerde and Langenhove 2007:379). Although the phenomenon of regional integration is not new, the successful formation of the European Union(EU) has reawakened interest in cooperation and interaction among nation-states. Elsewhere, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN), the North Atlantic Free Trade Area(NAFTA) and the Mercado Común del Sur(Mercosur), among others, have reorganised and braced up ties among member-states in order to fashion regional unions along the lines of the EU. 129 What is also remarkable within the context of Africa's'Third Wave' of democratisation(Huntington 1991) is the trend towards regional cooperation which is set to continue as governments and states opt for cooperation to serve a variety of purposes. The surge in regional integration in Africa in the early 1990s was due to two key forces of change in the global political and economic scenes. First, the crisis of the post-cold war order led to the emergence of a new global political structure which emphasized globalisation – and de-emphasised traditional barriers and individualism that had previously defined the focus of international relations of nation states. The second one which is directly linked to the first is that the global 'Third Wave' rendered obsolete the Westphalian concept of a system of sovereign states – that stressed the fully autonomous power of a state. Consequent to these developments, the dominant political philosophy in Africa in the 1990s came to centre on the integration of the economies of neighbouring states as a strategy for 'creating a larger regional market for trade and investment among African states' (Ginkel and Langenhove 2003:2). Leading proponents of regional integration in Africa further claimed that stronger sub-regional groupings such as the ECOWAS would spur greater efficiency, productivity gain and competitiveness, not just by lowering border barriers, but also by reducing other costs and risks of trade and investments(Ginkel and Langenhove 2003:2-3). This way, sub-regional trading arrangements were advocated as development tools because they encourage a shift towards greater market openness, reduce the risk of reversion to protectionism, and locks in reforms already prosecuted under the Structural Adjustment Program(SAP)(DeLombaerde and 129 . The European Union(EU) is an economic and political union of 27 member states. It was the outcome of the Treaty of Maastricht signed on February 1992 but came into force in November 1993. The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains a common trade policy, agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy. Sixteen member states have adopted a common currency, thee Euro.