Word: maastricht
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...exactly what Le Pen wanted, even though he campaigned fiercely against both the left and the center-right. Forcing Chirac to share power with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, he argued, would deprive the President of a "blank check to dissolve the French nation into the Europe of Maastricht," referring to the treaty decreeing that the European Union will have a single currency and thus much closer economic and political integration in 1999. Moreover, Le Pen believed the Socialist victory would provoke a political crisis in which voters would turn to his anti-Europe, France-first movement to save...
...Socialists are also calling for changes or additions to the Maastricht Treaty, a document that most experts say cannot be renegotiated. Among the Socialists' conditions for joining the euro are an insistence that Spain and Italy be included (which Germany bitterly resists), the adoption of a pact endorsing measures to boost jobs and growth, and the creation of an "economic government" as a political counterweight to the future European Central Bank...
...German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, though, all talk of tinkering with the Maastricht rules is anathema--and a potential threat to his re-election chances next year. "Kohl's already having trouble selling the German public on the idea of exchanging their hard D-marks for soft euros," says Paul Horne, a Paris-based international economist with Smith Barney. "If Jospin puts conditions to the Germans that they can't accept, it's goodbye euro." No wonder Kohl made a long phone call to Chirac the day after the election to seek assurances on France's future European policy...
...test will come next week, when Jospin and Chirac head to Amsterdam for the European Summit. There the ministers are due to approve the controversial, German-inspired "stability pact," intended to impose continued budgetary rigor once the euro is launched. But Jospin has denounced the pact as a "super-Maastricht." If he sticks to that position in Amsterdam, the launching of the euro could be delayed or even scuttled...
Despite the potential crisis, France's economy is on target to satisfy the Maastricht criteria, including the key requirement that budget deficits not exceed 3% of the gross domestic product by the end of this year. That accomplishment would be due to the spadework of Chirac and Juppe, who have already done much of the hard work of belt tightening, downsizing and preparing to privatize unprofitable state industries. But their efforts to tackle more structural reforms like deregulation, labor- market flexibility and trimming back the welfare state have met with stubborn public resistance...