Maastricht

Contributors from East and West Europe, Russia, and the US discuss the impact of the Treaty on the European Union (Maestricht Treaty) on American-European cooperation. Topics include the balance of power in NATO, monetary union in Europe, economic cooperation between Russia and the EC countries, environmental policy in Europe, and women in the EC b.

Economic and monetary union in the European Union represents a massive change for Europe and for the world. The Road to Maastricht identifies why the agreement was possible and how the agreement was made. The book examines the motives that inspired European political leaders, the strategies that they pursued, and the institutions that were used to achieve monetary union. Drawing on a wide range of sources and unprecedented research and interviews, the book combines careful political analysis with new information about the way in which European Monetary Union was negotiated. It delves into the complex forces at work in Europe, including the cross-national political interactions, to produce an authoritative account of the boldest and riskiest venture in the history of European integration.

Maastricht and Beyond is a critical assessment of the European Union brought into being by the Treaty of Maastricht. A team of experts provide a clear and thorough appraisal of the main provisions of the Treaty - including the three pillared structure of Economic and Monetary Union, common foreign and security policy and home affairs and justice - showing how these elements will change the function and eventually the character of the European Union. The book draws conclusions from the Maastricht process for the next reform of the Union in 1996, and it examines the practicalities of achieving a fully-fledged federal democracy, making proposals for a constitutional settlement. Maastricht and Beyond will appeal to both informed generalists and to students and scholars who want a fresh approach to the stale arguments over Maastricht, who seek enlightenment over what the Treaty is for and who have the curiosity to look forward to 1996 and beyond.

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992 and ratified in the following year, is widely seen as a landmark in the evolution of the European Union. It introduced into the treaty framework revolutionary new elements such as the co-decision procedure between the Council and the European Parliament, cooperation in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the "euro" as a single currency for the majority of the then member states. It also introduced the concept of European citizenship into the treaty, reflecting the rising expectations of both citizens and decision-makers in the European project, and upgraded the role of the European Council at the summit of the EU’s institutional structure. Twenty years later, each of these innovations remain of central importance for the process of European integration, while current developments provide a valuable opportunity to reflect on the historical decisions taken in Maastricht in order to assess their significance and examine the subsequent evolution of the Union. This volume brings together an international group of leading scholars in the field in order to provide such an assessment, with each article both looking back over the developments within each of these domains as well as looking ahead to the way in which the EU is positioned to address current challenges. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

European integration has long defied previous notions of state sovereignty and has since the days of the Coal and Steel Community been conferred with original supranational instruments. Yet the Treaty of Rome did not raise the same popular reactions as the Maastricht Treaty about the infringement of national sovereignty. This book suggests that the end of the Cold War has modified the functions of European integration so that the original ideals of integration have lost part of their appeal; hence the birth of the European Union can be regarded as an attempt to seek a new legitimacy. How far did the EU Treaty meet this unprecedented challenge? This book argues that the Maastricht Treaty established a constitutional framework for a new kind of polity without resolving the issue of its purpose and scope. The volume seeks thus to explain some of the reasons for the defeat of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 dating them back to the Maastricht Treaty. In so doing, the book links the actual state of European integration with the decisions taken at Maastricht in five different realms of supranational policy-making. The first is the constitutional setting of the EU Treaty and its effect on national constitutional law; the second is the concept of governance and the changes introduced by the Economic and Monetary Union; the third is the historical background of the Maastricht agreement; the fourth the political economy of the Economic and Monetary Union; the fifth is the impact of European citizenship in the recent case-law of the European Court of Justice and the prospects of a EU politicisation. The book puts in perspective the solutions to the recent stalemate of the European integration process offered by the Lisbon Treaty.

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book examines the British government's negotiation of the Treaty on European Union which took place between December 1990 and December 1991. On the basis of documentary and interview based evidence of leading participants from Britain and Europe, it offers a unique insight into the objectives and motivations of the British government. It analyses the various constraints and pressures that impinged on the British government and sets its successes and failures in the Maastricht negotiations in a broader context of British European policy.

The Maastricht inflation criterion, designed in the early 1990s to bring "high-inflation" EU countries in line with "low-inflation" countries prior to the introduction of the euro, poses challenges for both new EU member countries and the European Central Bank. While the criterion has positively influenced the public stance toward low inflation, it has biased the choice of the disinflation strategy toward short-run, fiat measures-rather than adopting structural reforms with longer-term benefits-with unpleasant consequences for the efficiency of the eurozone transmission mechanism. The criterion is also unnecessarily tight for new member countries as it mainly reflects cyclical developments.

This book describes lessons learned from the implementation of research based learning at Maastricht University. Well-known for its problem based learning (PBL) educational model, Maastricht University implemented research-based learning (RBL) as a new educational concept in addition to PBL, around 2009. The model has taken the shape of an excellence programme offering third-year bachelor students an opportunity to conduct academic research together with academic staff. The introduction of the research-based learning concept into the programmes of all Maastricht University’s faculties has resulted in a range of RBL models that vary to fit the various disciplines and programmes offered by the faculties. The book first presents theoretical models and a description of the concepts of research-based learning and undergraduate research (UGR). Next, by means of case studies, it describes the formulas developed to suit the various programmes, the challenges encountered, the initial reservations on the part of the staff, the limitations caused by regulations and demands of the curricula, as well as the successes and results of the excellence programme. The disciplines described in the case studies include psychology and neuroscience, knowledge engineering, social and cultural sciences, law, and business and economics.