Word: maastricht
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Europe. Their answer, which provoked an instant volley of slings and arrows from the nation's outraged Community partners, was an astounding no. By a 50.7% majority, meaning roughly 48,000 votes out of nearly 4 million cast, Danes voted in a referendum not to ratify the treaty of Maastricht, a landmark agreement that pledges the Community to monetary as well as political union by the end of the century. Coming amid a Continent-wide recession and with a bloody conflict still raging in Yugoslavia, the stunning no vote also undercut the unity that could allow the Eurocrats in Brussels...
Those anxious to scuttle the Maastricht agreement quickly pointed out that it cannot legally take effect in any of the 12 E.C. countries until approved by all of them. "The Danes' decision has blown a hole in the treaty below the waterline," argued British Conservative M.P. Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson, with scarcely suppressed glee. Still others hailed the plebiscite as a triumph for democracy, highlighting the abyss between voters and their political leaders who, in Denmark's case, had campaigned vigorously for the treaty's approval...
...industrial prosperity. Perhaps that compact of mutual benefit can be restored eventually. Nevertheless, the size of the wage hikes resulting from the strike will damp the energy of Europe's economic powerhouse at the , critical moment when it is needed to pull the Continent together. Germany, the "Paymaster of Maastricht," whose Bundesbank anchors the European monetary system that will be unified under that treaty's ambitious integration plans, is certainly headed for deep debt, maybe even into recession...
...sure that Germany stays in the "middle of the crowd" is to forge ahead with the integration of Europe. Kohl may be a better Europeanist than anybody else in Europe. "There was a tremendous sense of relief in the French delegation as we came back from Maastricht," recalls Maurice Gourdot- Montagne, a spokesman at the Quai d'Orsay. "We bet on Helmut Kohl because he is the most European...
...will he remain a good European if the others are not? The Germans wanted, practically pleaded, to pool their sovereignty at Maastricht in a broad European political union. Such a union was promised, but is a long way from reality. "If the Maastricht Treaty stalls, then we may see a return to traditional policies of the German nation-state," warns Francois Heisbourg, director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. "Then Germany could feel free to break out and go its own way." That happened twice in this century, with devastating consequences. It would be the height...