Economic and Monetary Union: Critical Notes on the Maastricht Treaty Revisions

The Maastricht European Council clarified above all two features of the so-called stage II. (1) the duration of the stage for those participants who meet the requirements of convergence to qualify for full economic and monetary union (EMU); and (2) the need to focus on these issues, including the likely implications for the stability of the EMS and for the evolution of the ecu in the transition. In a sense, since the transition now has an upper bound to its length - 3 to at most 5 years - its specific features may be less important than originally thought. A second part of the paper compares the Maastricht Treaty revisions with some ideas in the Delors report, along lines complementary to those in Andrew Crockett's paper; special attention is paid to the causes of the failure of the gradualist approach of transferring some elements of monetary authority to a European constitution already in stage II. In view of the absence of any real authority over current monetary management for the proposed EMI it is all the more important that the EMI be able to prepare in as definitive a way as possible the framework for the future monetary policy in EMU.