Blackwell Reference Online

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Officially known as the Treaty on European Union (TEU), this was signed in February 1992 and came into force in November 1993. It constitutes one of the landmarks in the history of european integration . Prompted by the end of the cold war and by german reunification , it inaugurated what now became the European Union (EU) on the basis of “three pillars.” The first related to consolidating the single market and fortifying infrastructural concerns such as the common agricultural policy (CAP) by the eventual jettisoning of fixed exchange rates and the adoption of a single currency (the euro). economic and monetary union (EMU) was to be complemented by a common social program, the Social Protocol or Social Chapter. The second pillar involved the creation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), building on the idea of the western european union (WEU), a project revitalized by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The third pillar dealt with improved provision for free movement of goods and peoples, already encouraged by the schengen agreement of 1985. Maastricht also instituted some institutional reforms including the wider use of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV), a strengthening of the European parliament as a monitor of the work of the European Commission, and the founding of a Committee of the Regions to distribute aid. Ratification of the treaty was not without its ... log in or subscribe to read full text