Maastricht Treaty

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This article is about the European Union treaty of 1992. For the 1843 treaty between Belgium and the Netherlands, see Treaty of Maastricht (1843).

For the content of the treaty as of 2009, see Treaties of the European Union#Treaty on European Union

Maastricht Treaty
Treaty on European Union
Type of treaty	Amending treaty
Signed Location	7 February 1992 Maastricht, Netherlands
Effective	1 November 1993
Signatories	1992 EC members
Languages	10[show] Danish Dutch English French German Greek Irish Italian Portuguese Spanish
Treaty on European Union at Wikisource

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union

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The Treaty of Maastricht (formally, the Treaty on European Union,^[1] (TEU)^[2]) was signed on 7 February 1992 by the members of the European Community in Maastricht, the Netherlands.^[3] On 9–10 December 1991, the same city hosted the European Council which drafted the treaty.^[4] Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission,^[5] it created the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro. The Maastricht Treaty has been amended to a degree by later treaties. For details on the content of the treaty as amended by Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon, see the treaties of the European Union article.

The Provincial Government Buildings on the Meuse where the Maastricht Treaty was signed on 7 February 1992.

Contents [show] 1 Content 1.1 The Maastricht criteria 2 Ratification 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Content

The signing of the Treaty

The treaty led to the creation of the euro currency, and created what is commonly referred to as the pillar structure of the European Union. This conception of the Union divides it into the European Community (EC) pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar, and the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) pillar. The latter two pillars are intergovernmental policy areas, where the power of member-states is at its greatest extent, whilst under the European Community pillar the Union’s supra-national institutions — the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice — have the most power. All three pillars were the extensions of existing policy structures. The European Community pillar was the continuation of the European Economic Community with the “Economic” being dropped from the name to represent the wider policy base given by the Maastricht Treaty. Coordination in foreign policy had taken place since the beginning of the 1970s under the name of European Political CooperationSingle European Act but not as a part of the EEC. While the Justice and Home Affairs pillar extended cooperation in law enforcement, criminal justice, asylum, and immigration and judicial cooperation in civil matters, some of these areas had already been subject to intergovernmental cooperation under the Schengen Implementation Convention of 1990. (EPC), which had been written into the treaties by the

The creation of the pillar system was the result of the desire by many member states to extend the European Economic Community to the areas of foreign policy, military, criminal justice, judicial cooperation, and the misgiving of other member states, notably the United Kingdom, over adding areas which they considered to be too sensitive to be managed by the supra-national mechanisms of the European Economic Community. The compromise was that instead of renaming the European Economic Community as the European Union, the treaty would establish a legally separate European Union comprising the renamed European Economic Community, and the inter-governmental policy areas of foreign policy, military, criminal justice, judicial cooperation. The structure greatly limited the powers of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice to influence the new intergovernmental policy areas, which were to be contained with the second and third pillars: foreign policy and military matters (the CFSP pillar) and criminal justice and cooperation in civil matters (the JHA pillar).