The Maastricht Treaty, concluded in 1992 between the 12 member states of the European Communities, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU).
Formally the Treaty on the European Union, it announced a new stage in the process of European integration chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and with less precision for common foreign and security policies.
Although these were widely seen to presage a federal Europe, the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance -the Maastricht criteria- for the currency union.
Against the background of the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, and in anticipation of accelerated globalization, the treaty negotiated tensions between member states seeking deeper integration and those wishing to retain greater national control. The resulting compromise faced what was to be the first in a series of EU treaty ratification crises.
From the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957, integrationists argued the free movement of workers was the logical corollary of the free movement of capital, goods and services and integral to the establishment of a common and later single European market.
In time, the tension between the transferred worker as a mobile unit of production contributing to the success of the single market, and the reality of the Community migrants as individuals, seeking to exercise a personal right to live and work in another state for their own, and their families', welfare, asserted itself. The Treaty built on the growing suggestion that there was a Community-wide basis for citizenship rights.
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The Treaty rules that every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. This common and parallel citizenship accords the Member State migrants not only the civil right to take up residence and employment, but also, and for the first time, political rights.
In a new EU country of residence Member-State nationals have the right to vote, and to stand, in both local and European elections. Unresolved in the Treaty is the question of their access to social rights. Political debate continued as to who should have access to public services and welfare systems funded by taxation.
The four convergence criteria, as detailed in attached protocols, impose control over inflation, public debt and the public deficit, exchange rate stability and domestic interest rates. With limited leeway granted in exceptional circumstances, the obligations are to maintain:
-Inflation at a rate no more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the average of the three best performing (the lowest inflation) Member States.
-A budgetary position that avoids excessive government deficits defined in ratios to gross domestic product (GDP) of greater than 3% for annual deficits and 60% for gross government debt.
-The exchange rate of the national currency within the normal fluctuation margins by the exchange-rate mechanism of the European Monetary System without severe tensions for at least the last two years.
-Nominal long-term interest rates no more than 2 percentage points higher than in the three Member States with the lowest inflation.
More information: Europa
and the European Union is, indeed,
in the history of the world the most successful
peace project in human lives.
Federica Mogherini
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