Maastricht Treaty

The Maastricht Treaty was of great importance in the issue of political unification of the states of Europe. He was signed in 1992, on February 7, in the Netherlands.

1989-90 was a rather difficult period. On the one hand, Germany aspiring to reunification was accused of insufficient attention to the interests of its neighbors. On the other hand, Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister) expressed concerns about the possible hegemony of the Germans in the central part of Europe. After the reunification on the territory of Germany will live about eighty million people. The head of the English cabinet feared the Germans' domination of other nations. Francois Mitterand (French President) was also not very pleased with the formation of a large state on the eastern border of his country. Thus, the prerequisites for the creation of the European Union appeared.

For the idea of uniting the countries, Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl (Chancellor of Germany) were most active. In 1992, the German Chancellor actively supported the signing of the Maastricht Treaty at the congress of the Christian Democratic Union. Helmut Kohl said that the development of Germany largely depends on the development of Europe, since Germany is located in the center of the continent.

The signed Maastricht Treaty provided for not only the unity of states in the political sphere. It was supposed to create a monetary union. This meant that not only the EU's single economy would be created, but also foreign and security policies. Thus, there was a need to establish the post of "Minister for Foreign Affairs of the EU".

The Maastricht Treaty provided (afterwards) a single citizenship for all persons residing in the EU states. As for the internal structure of the powers, it must correspond to the principles of democracy.

It should be noted that the decision to introduce a single monetary unit "euro" has caused a strong reaction from the government of many countries. Countries feared that, having lost their national currencies, they would come to economic destabilization and inflation.

However, in 1996, Germany proposed to carry out a set of measures ensuring a strict financial discipline and aimed at preventing a sharp increase in the financial debt. As the practice of the following years has shown, all these measures proved to be very effective in maintaining the balance of the state budget in most states of the European Union.

The discussions about the signing of the new agreement were influenced by the events in Eastern Europe. The USSR ceased to exist (in 1991). Many Eastern European countries began to establish a democratic form of government even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, seeking to join the EU as quickly as possible.

The Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993, in November. It is called in accordance with the name of the city in which it was signed.

Everyone knows about the existence of the European Union . To date, this is one of the key communities in the world. Here it is necessary to say about which countries are part of the European Union. Today there are twenty-seven states: Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus, Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Netherlands , Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Belgium.

The provisions of the Maastricht Treaty provided for a certain amount of public debt of any EU state (no more than 60% of GDP), and the budget deficit should not be more than 3% of GDP. Inflation should not exceed the average inflation rate in the three countries with the lowest indicator.