Word: maastricht
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Heavy betting against the exchange system began as the Sept. 20 French referendum on the Maastricht treaty approached. If the result of this vote on the package of new steps toward European economic unity were to be non, no one wanted to be caught holding a weak currency. Banks, pension funds and private investors began selling off Italian lire, and Italy, fearful of depleting foreign reserves, was forced to devalue its currency...
HURRICANE MAASTRICHT HIT EUrope a week earlier than expected, and with a roar that all but drowned out France's fateful vote on European integration. In its wake lay a twisted political and economic landscape that may never look quite the same again. Battered as never before in its 13-year history, the European monetary system will need extensive repairs if it is to serve as the cornerstone of some future monetary union. Britain, where a parliamentary vote in favor of the treaty on European unity had once been a foregone conclusion, emerged from the tempest in a shaken...
Like many a natural catastrophe, Europe's monetary storm blew up with little warning, though the clouds had been darkening since June, when Denmark narrowly rejected the Maastricht treaty. Named for the Dutch city where it was signed last February, the pact provides for the eventual political union of the European Community, a common foreign and security policy, and most important, a single European currency...
...rate to slip for the first time in five years, from 9.75% to 9.5%. The cut was hardly a generous one on a Continent desperate for cheaper credit and stronger growth, but it was enough to set off foreign-exchange traders already nervous about the upcoming French referendum on Maastricht...
...currency chaos compounds the uncertainty over the outcome of the September 20 referendum in France on the Maastricht treaty, which is supposed to lay the basis for a European Union. French voters could decide they do not like the high interest rates dictated by Germany and vote non on the treaty. That would doom it and change the shape of post-cold war Europe...