Economic and monetary union: critical notes on the Maastricht Treaty revisions

1993 ◽  
pp. 9-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Thygesen
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Critical Notes

History of an Incomplete EMU

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Banking Regulation ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Monetary Unions ◽  
Single Currency ◽  
Financial Transfers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Banking Regulation And Supervision

The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) created in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty was famously incomplete. The decision to create a European single currency was taken without agreeing at the same time on the introduction of traditional accompanying features of some other monetary unions, namely: substantial financial transfers from richer to less developed regions, a credible framework for macroeconomic policy coordination, and European-wide provisions for banking regulation and supervision, to name but a few. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty set out an unfinished, or ‘lopsided union’, with the predominance of monetary union over economic union. The titles of the multiple reports published since 1992, such as the Van Rompuy report of 2012, ‘Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union’, the Five Presidents’ Report of 2015, ‘Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’, and the Commission’s ‘Reflection Paper on the Deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union’ of 2017 highlight this lopsidedness very well.

Stuck on the wrong track: 20 years of euro disillusion, denial, and delusion

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Jörg Bibow
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
The Past ◽  
Asymmetric Growth

This contribution assesses the functioning of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) during the first 20 years of the euro's existence. It argues that two formative intellectual currents converged at Maastricht to shape the design and reception of the euro regime: ordoliberalism and neoliberalism. Germany's ordoliberalism inspired and shaped the euro regime design. Neoliberalism fashioned the reception of what was agreed at Maastricht under the influence of Bundesbank dogma and power. As a product of the zeitgeist, Europe got stuck with a deeply flawed euro regime. The Maastricht Treaty institutionalized an asymmetric (growth-unfriendly) policy regime. This suited the macroeconomic mainstream well, fighting the ‘1970s stagflation war’ for the past 40 years. Twenty years of euro disillusion have produced the exact opposite: ‘stagdeflation.’

Economic and Monetary Union – A Model for Flexibility?

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 39-75
Author(s):  
John Usher
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Community Institutions ◽  
Amsterdam Treaty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
To Receive

With hindsight, the Maastricht Treaty introduced two different forms of flexibility or differentiated integration. The Social Protocol took the form of a permission by all the Member States to a group of Member States to use Community institutions and legislation, which can be seen as the precursor of the general provisions on “closer cooperation” in the Amsterdam Treaty. On the other hand, the provisions on Economic and Monetary Union provide for some Member States to receive opt-outs or derogations from binding Treaty obligations and thus provide the model for the new Title of the EC Treaty on visa, asylum and immigration introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty.

Italy and the Fiscal Compact: Why does a country commit to permanent austerity?

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Moschella
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Fiscal Discipline ◽  
Budgetary Policy ◽  
Italian Government ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Fiscal Compact ◽  
Limited Support

The paper investigates the factors that led the Italian government to accede to the Fiscal Compact in spite of its demanding requirements for the country’s budgetary policy. Specifically, the paper assesses the extent to which Italian government’s support for the Fiscal Compact was driven by the logic of the ‘vincolo esterno’ in a replication of the pattern that led Italy to sign the Maastricht Treaty. The paper finds only limited support to the ‘vincolo esterno’ argument. Rather than being motivated by domestic dysfunctions or socialization to the fiscal discipline doctrine, the Italian government acted mainly out of market punishment fears. Interestingly, however, three factors filtered such external pressures and contributed shaping government’s support for the new Treaty. First, the Economic and Monetary Union unfinished architecture, and in particular the lack of a European financial firewall, weakened opposition to the new Treaty. That is to say, the institutional context constrained the choices that Italian policymakers could pursue. Second, the pro-European orientations of government members contributed to elevating the new Treaty to a symbol of European integration. Finally, the Italian government confronted a quite large domestic win-set during the negotiations, as the parties supporting the Monti government also supported Italy’s participation to the new Treaty.

The Maastricht Treaty, Economic and Monetary Union and the neo-realist research programme

1995 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Grieco
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Community Institutions ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Border Controls

With the Treaty on European Union, or the Maastricht Treaty, into force in November 1993, the member-states of the European Community (EC) appeared to be embarking on a far-reaching enterprise to enhance the authority of Community institutions. Continuing a process that had begun with the Single European Act (SEA), into force in 1987, Maastricht increased the powers of the European Parliament. It established mechanisms whereby EC countries were to seek to improve policy coordination in such diverse areas as social affairs, high technology, border controls, immigration, and anti-crime efforts. It committed the EC members to work toward the establishment of a common foreign and security policy. Most importantly, it laid out a path and timetable for qualified EC members to achieve Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) by the end of the 1990s.

Reflections on the Maastricht Treaty

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emile Noël
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
European Council ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Political Decisions

The Conclusions Reached at the meeting of the European Council in Maastricht, on 9 — 10 December 1991, on economic and monetary union and also on political union, form an impressive and complex whole, in which undertakings of major importance coexist with other more timid ones. A detailed analysis would overstep the limits of an article. Moreover, there are still some problems to be cleared up before the final drafts are agreed, even if the principal political decisions have already been taken. The remarks which I would like to submit here will therefore deal more with general questions, and I will limit myself to the more significant provisions of the Maastricht agreements.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
European Currency ◽  
European Economic ◽  
Future Direction

In its more than seven decades of history European integration has gone through many stages of development. Some of them were incremental, but many more rather sudden, triggered or at least profoundly influenced by legal predicaments and political impasses, following the proverbial advice to ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’. The policy areas that are broadly abridged under the term Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) form no exception in this regard. EMU is deeply rooted in and following the inherent logic of political integration through gradual economic integration proclaimed in the well-known Schuman Declaration and thereafter given shape through the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the subsequent Treaty establishing the European Economic Community. Yet, it was the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty/TEU), which was meant to put an end to the at times fiercely led (academic) debates on the future direction of European integration and its democratic credentials, that finally provided the necessary legal impetus for the establishment of an economic and monetary union and the creation of a supranational, single European currency.

The Maastricht Treaty: Creating the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Laursen ◽  
Sophie Vanhoonacker
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Development Cooperation ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States

The Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union (EU), was signed in Maastricht on February 7, 1992, and it entered into force on November 1, 1993, after being ratified by the then 12 member states of the European Communities. The Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) on Political Union (PU) and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) where the member states negotiated the amendments to the founding treaties took place against the turbulent geopolitical background of the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), German unification, and the end of the Cold War. The new treaty amended the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and established the European Community (EC) as the first pillar of the Union. It also amended the Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the Treaty Establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC). It further added two pillars of intergovernmental cooperation, namely Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in a second pillar and Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) cooperation in a third pillar. Overall, the Maastricht Treaty constituted one of the most important treaty changes in the history of European integration. It included provisions on the creation of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), including a single European currency. It tried to increase the democratic legitimacy and efficiency of the decision-making process through empowerment of the European Parliament (EP) and the extension of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV). Next to introducing the principle of subsidiarity and the concept of European citizenship, it further developed existing policies such as social policy and added new ones including education, culture, public health, consumer protection, trans-European networks, industrial policy, and development cooperation.

scholarly journals The future of the Economic and Monetary Union to 2025 and beyond: the need for convergence

European View ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-125
Author(s):  
Kaloyan Dimitrov Simeonov
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Regulatory Reform ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Real Convergence ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic And Financial Crisis

As set forth in the Maastricht Treaty, the objective of establishing the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was based mainly on the need to achieve nominal convergence. However, the global economic and financial crisis has since proved that the EMU architecture is not solid enough. Therefore, EU institutions and member states have developed and started to implement plans for the completion of the EMU. The main focus of these plans up to 2025 is on institutional and regulatory reform. However, more attention should be paid to other types of convergence: real convergence, social convergence, financial convergence, cyclical convergence and structural convergence. This would lead to sustainable and strong all-round convergence in the EMU. This article outlines recommendations for the completion and sustainable maintenance of the EMU, concentrating on social, financial and cyclical convergence.

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