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.

EU Institutions Representing Member States’ Governments

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenia Dumitriu Segnana ◽  
Alberto de Gregorio Merino
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
National Policies ◽  
Greek Crisis

The Council of the European Union (EU) occupies a central place in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), even more so than in any other Union policies. It exercises in this area a variety of roles going from a forum for coordination of national policies to legislative functions and executive powers. The different crises that affected the Union and in particular the euro area in the last ten years have strengthened its prominent position, in no small part due to the Council’s ownership by the Member States. Alongside the Council, the Euro Group, which is presided by a fixed-term president, has developed itself as the informal forum where Ministers from the Member States whose currency is the euro discuss matters of common interest. Its role has been decisive, in particular in the Cypriot and Greek crisis, which could have put into question the very existence of the euro area as a whole.

Het moeilijke keren van een kolos de Europese Unie in 1995

Res Publica ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 607-630
Author(s):  
Bart Kerremans
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Past ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Eu

In 1995 the newly enlarged European Union has proved to be capable to handle its problems and to take decisions in a large array of issues. The EU tried to cope with unemployment, continued the preparation of the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union, adopted its 1996 budget decisions relatively smoothly, and intensified its relations with different parts of the world. On the other hand however, enlargement itself is increasingly affecting the Union as it preparing itself for the upcoming accession of some of its Central European and Mediterranean neighbors. The northern member states look with some suspicion at the budgetary consequences and already show a lot of restraint in paying more to the EU-budget, for the sake of their southern counterparts. Some member states are looking for a balanced enlargement in which the eastern enlargement would be counterbalanced by a Mediterranean one, and for a balance in the financial support that is provided by the EU to third countries. The biggest issue is however, the institutional adaptation of the European Union to a new enlargement. The preparations of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conferencethat took place in 1995, have shown however, that this process will be a difficult one. With the 1995 enlargement, the European Union has increased the number ofmember states that perceive the process of European integration primarily as an economic one. This will make institutional adaptations more difficult and risks to paralyze the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Union even more than it already did in the past few years. Stated differently, 1995 has left a number of question marks on the EU's future. Whether these will disappear soon, 1996 will show.

EMU as Constitutional Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno De Witte
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
European Monetary Union ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The Body ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Union ◽  
The Moment

The creation of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was an important enterprise of constitutional engineering and expressed a belief in the capacity of constitutional law to accomplish economic objectives. The Treaty of Maastricht was prepared by not one but two intergovernmental conferences, namely one on ‘European Political Union’ and another one on ‘European Monetary Union’. The negotiators participating in the latter of the two conferences were given a free hand in drafting a lengthy set of norms that were eventually included in the Maastricht Treaty, either in the body of the new Treaty or in detailed Protocols. At the moment of entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty, all EMU law was therefore constitutional law of the European Union, and still today, when many further norms of secondary law have been enacted, an important part of EMU law is still of a formally constitutional nature, by being contained in the text of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and its annexed Protocols. There is thus a consistent body of EMU constitutional law, which is the object of this contribution.

scholarly journals The Fiscal Compact and the European Constitutions: ‘Europe Speaking German’

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
LB ◽  
JHR
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fiscal Compact

In between the writing of this editorial and the publication of this issue of EuConst, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in everyday parlance the ‘Fiscal Compact’, will have been signed by the representatives of the governments of the contracting parties — the member states of the European Union minus the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. The Fiscal Compact is intended to foster budgetary discipline, to strengthen the coordination of economic policies and to improve the governance of the euro area.

3. The Transfer of Powers and Union Competences

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Nigel Foster
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Union Section ◽  
And Control

This chapter examines the multifaceted and increasingly complex relationship between the European Union and its member states. The chapter begins with the transfer of sovereign powers and the democratic legitimacy of the Union and the establishment of constitutionalism within the Union. Section 3.4 considers the transfer of powers from the member states and the division and control of competences between the Union and the member states. In this context, the principles of subsidiarity and of proportionality are discussed, which are the political solutions to the very emotive questions about how power is shared between the Union and the member states.

scholarly journals A New Crisis Manager at the Horizon – The Case of the European Union

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-263
Author(s):  
Steven Blockmans
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Management Capability ◽  
Concrete Form ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Common

The 1999 Kosovo crisis has forced the European Union to finally give concrete form to its ambitions in the sphere of the common foreign and security policy. At a time when agreement on defence issues seems out of reach, the member states' focus is on the development of a crisis management capability. It is argued that when the Union's diplomatic structures are complemented with military and civilian crisis response tools, much needed balance will be given to the Union's persona as an economic giant and a political dwarf. The article includes a number of measures which should be taken with a view to reinforcing and extending the Union's external role in this field.

National Parliaments and the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Auel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Way

The role and position of national parliaments in European Union (EU) affairs have undergone a long, slow, and sometimes rocky, but overall rather remarkable, development. Long regarded as the victims of the integration process, they have continuously strengthened their institutional prerogatives and have become more actively involved in EU affairs. Since the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments even have a formal and direct role in the European legislative process, namely, as guardians of the EU’s subsidiarity principle via the so-called early warning system. To what extent institutional provisions at the national or the European level provide national parliaments with effective means of influencing EU politics is still a largely open question. On the one hand, national parliaments still differ with regard to their institutional prerogatives and actual engagement in EU politics. On the other hand, the complex decision-making system of the EU, with its multitude of actors involved, makes it difficult to trace outcomes back to the influence of specific actors. Yet it is precisely this opacity of the EU policymaking process that has led to an emphasis on the parliamentary communication function and the way national parliaments can contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU by making EU political decisions and processes more accessible and transparent for the citizens. This deliberative aspect is also often emphasized in approaches to the role of national parliaments in the EU that challenge the territorially defined, standard account of parliamentary representation. Taking the multilevel character of the EU as well as the high degree of political and economic interdependence between the member states into account, parliamentary representation is conceptualized as extending beyond the nation-state and as shared across the EU, with a strong emphasis on the links between parliaments through inter-parliamentary cooperation and communication as well as on the representation of other member states’ citizens interests and concerns in parliamentary debates. Empirical research is still scarce, but existing studies provide evidence for the development of an increasingly dense web of formal and informal interactions between parliaments and for changes in the way national parliamentarians represent citizens in EU affairs.

scholarly journals The Limits of Agencification in the European Union

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1223-1255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslava Scholten ◽  
Marloes van Rijsbergen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Road ◽  
European Court ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Eu

Although not explicitly regulated by the EU treaties, EU agencies not only exist but also have increased in number and power. In addition, while EU agencies may exercise very similar functions to those of the Commission, Articles 290 and 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) do not list agencies among the possible authors of non-legislative acts. The existing situation raises the questions of the extent to which the ongoing agencification in the EU is legitimate and what its limits are. This article addresses these questions in the light of the old and new Treaties and case law, including the just releasedESMA-shortsellingcase. It shows that while the Lisbon Treaty made a few steps forward on the road of legitimizing EU agencies and delegating important powers to them, the scope of powers that EU agencies can have remains unclear. In this respect, the European Court of Justice's lenient approach in theESMA-shortsellingcase is unfortunate because it neither clarifies the issue nor pushes the Union Legislator and the Member States to address it. Consequently, in the absence of clear limits, further agencification is likely to persist at the risk of increasing the democratic legitimacy deficit and remaining accountability gaps.

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