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The Maastricht Treaty (formally, the Treaty on European Union, TEU) was signed on February 7, 1992 in Maastricht, the Netherlands after final negotiations on December 9, 1991 between the members of the European Community and entered into force on November 1, 1993 during the Delors Commission. It led to the creation of the European Union and was the result of separate negotiations on monetary union and on political union. The Maastricht Treaty has been amended to a degree by later treaties.


Content

A separate protocol linked to the treaty led to the creation of the euro, and introduced the Three pillars of the European Union (the European Communities pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy or CFSP pillar, and the Justice and Home Affairs pillar). The CFSP pillar was built on the foundation of European Political Cooperation (EPC), but brought it under a treaty and extended it. The JHA pillar introduced cooperation in law enforcement, criminal justice, civil judicial matters, and asylum and immigration. Originally, the European Community (EC) dealt mainly with economic, social and trade matters. The European Commission and the European Court of Justice, both operationally independent from the national governments, although appointed by them, had a lot of power within the system. The European Parliament, which was directly elected by the citizens of the EC member states, also had some power. The Governments retained the most power in the Council of Ministers, but since the mid-1980s had increasingly been taking decisions through qualified majority votes (about 71% of the votes). This system was called the Community method, or supranationalism, as institutions not directly controlled by the governments wielded significant power, and members could have decisions they disagreed with imposed upon them through majority votes.

It was desired to add competencies in foreign policy, military and criminal matters to the European Community. However, many member states considered that these areas were too sensitive to be managed by the mechanisms of the European Community, and that the power of governments in relation to these areas had to be stronger than the powers of governments in the European Community. That is, an intergovernmental, as opposed to supranational, system would have to be used. Other member states feared that this might threaten the power of the independent supranational institutions (the European Commission, European Court of Justice and European Parliament) in relation to the economic matters then dealt with by the European Community. The three pillar structure was then developed to isolate the traditional Community responsibilities in the area of the economy (the Community Pillar) from the new competencies in the areas of foreign policy and military matters (the CFSP pillar) and criminal matters (the JHA pillar). The Maastricht treaty created also the position of the Ombudsman.


Ratification

The process of ratifying the treaty was fraught with difficulties in three states. Denmark first rejected the treaty on 2 June 1992 by fewer than 50,000 votes in a referendum. This sparked a referendum in France which only narrowly supported it, with 51.05% in favour. The treaty was ratified by Denmark on 18 May 1993 with the addition of the Edinburgh Agreement which lists four Danish exceptions. In the United Kingdom, an opt-out from the treaty's social provisions was opposed in Parliament by the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs and the treaty itself by the Maastricht Rebels within the governing Conservative Party. The number of rebels exceeded the Conservative majority in the House of Commons, and thus the government of John Major came close to losing the confidence of the House.