The Maastricht Treaty: 20 years later

In the winter of 1992, with temperatures just above freezing, the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) was signed in the Statenzaal of the Limburg Government building in Maastricht.

Now, 20 years later, with snow in the streets and temperatures well below zero, Maastricht University together with the Municipality of Maastricht and the Province of Limburg organised a conference to look back on the history leading up to the signing of the treaty and assess the future of the European Union (EU). The conference ‘The Maastricht Treaty: Taking Stock After 20 Years’ was not only an occasion to commemorate the event, but also to analyse the success of the Treaty within the context of the economic crisis that is rocking Europe today.

In his opening word Theo Bovens, Governor of the Province of Limburg, took the audience back to the beginnings of the European Union. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was set up after the Second World War to rebuild a Franco-German relationship and to bring peace and prosperity in Europe, in order to make another war unthinkable. While many people today may not personally remember the war, this process lies at the foundation of the EU.

The participants of the Keynote Round Table, Enrique Barón Crespo, former President of the European Parliament, Henning Christophersen, former Vice-President of the European Commission, and Wim Kok, former Prime Minister and the acting Minister of Finance of the Netherlands at the time of the treaty negotiations, took a seat in the same room and at the same table where the treaty was signed 20 years ago.

Wim Kok explained that there was an obvious wish to prepare for the next step after the completion of the internal market. Recalling the troubled years in the European Community of the 1970s and early 1980s, and the challenges the community had faced with the internal market, an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with a single currency, looked like the logical next step. As Enrique Barón Crespo added that the world changed in 1989 with the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union and that it had become impossible to ignore the rest of Europe. The same rules were needed for everyone and the treaty was a step in a peaceful revolution to include other countries into the community.

In the context of the current crisis, however, it was legitimate to raise the question whether the treaty, and consequently the single currency was such a good idea. Should other options have been looked at? All three members at the table agreed: the treaty was a culmination of a process that had been going on for years and it was inevitable. Wim Kok took it a step further and explained that for those present in the negotiations the wish was even to make the single currency an irreversible process. As Henning Christophersen pointed out: the treaty did not have a strong political union aspect because political integration was not wanted, yet political situations have overtaken the treaty.

The second day of the conference took up an academic perspective with four panels looking at historical perspectives, the Monetary Union, the EU institutions after the treaty in terms of effectiveness and democracy, and future perspectives. Several of the historians present at the conference pointed out that taking stock after only 20 years is quite early, but they also agreed that the treaty itself had been a long time in the making. Going as far back as the 1950s right up until the ratification of the treaty itself, there were several attempts to connect the different European currencies, to integrate Western Europe on a political level, or within foreign affairs. Many practices existed within the community that did not take an official shape until the Treaty on the European Union. The word “inevitable” was repeated again. 

International conference on The Maastricht Treaty: Taking Stock After 20 Years, 7-8 February 2012

But the idea of inevitability begs the question: Was the treaty set up in the wrong way, or would it have been better to have a very different kind of treaty?

Once again the consensus among the panellists was that the treaty in itself was not so much flawed, as that it left a lot of room for interpretation in its implementation. There was a strong economic and monetary necessity for it, but the complementary political integration was overlooked. Now the political situations seem to have overtaken the treaty.

A better question to ask, according to the panellists, was what would have happened if there had been no treaty. For if there had been no treaty, and therefore no single currency, would we be still experiencing a similar crisis today? Most panellists replied with a resounding “Yes”. The crisis might have taken a different shape, but it seemed as inevitable as the treaty itself.

The final panel at the end of the conference looked towards the future of the EU. Do the differences in temperature in Maastricht between 1992 and 2012, also reflect the view on the European Union? 

Enthusiasm about the EU has dropped, citizens do not have a strong connection to the EU and Brussels politics the way they have to national politics.

Confidence in the Euro and solidarity and trust between the Member States is low. Twenty years after the Treaty on the European Union, a new treaty is being discussed, and hopefully it will bring Europe out of its crisis, and temperatures will rise again.

By EJC intern Martine Rouweleer

Photographs: Seonghwi Kim

Posted on February 20, 2012 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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