Maastricht

Ever dream of having breakfast in Germany, lunch in `f Luxembourg, cocktails in Belgium and dinner in Holland? How about all in the same day? It can't be done, right?Wrong. I dined in all four countries during a single day trip from the Dutch town of Maastricht. And I managed it all on only a half tank of gas.The oldest city in the Netherlands, and which lent its name as site of negotations for a European treaty on monetary union, Maastricht (population 117,000) makes an outstanding travel base for excursions into neighboring nations.

LONDON -- Danish voters reversed their veto of last June an approved the European Treaty of Economic and Political Union yesterday, propelling the accord closer to completion.With 4 million votes cast and an 85 percent turnout, the treaty for the 12-nation European Community was approved by 56.8 percent of the voters. Last year, only 49.3 percent voted yes to a slightly different version."It is a positive outcome," said Hans van den Brock, the European Commission External Affairs Minister.

Washington. -- The people, worms that they are, are capable of any depravity, particularly with ballots. So Europe's governing class has not consulted the people unduly about plans for ever-closer European union. Or is it to be federalism? Whatever, the people will be told their destination, in due time.But on Sunday the French people may commit what advanced thinkers everywhere consider the ultimate impudence. They may vote against the Maastricht Treaty, thereby producing a prudent pause in a process hitherto virtually untinged with democracy.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Denmark will have another chance t vote for European unity Tuesday, but it may be too late to put the movement back on track any time soon.Fundamental doubts about the European Community's march to political and economic unity -- common European defense and foreign policies, a single EC currency -- have spread to all the community's major countries. Germany is worried about losing its currency, France about its identity and Britain about itssovereignty.In this atmosphere, a yes vote in Denmark might not be enough to give EC political leaders the will and the popular support they need to press toward unity.

Bonn.--Maastricht isn't dead yet. To be sure, Danish, British and even German voters are grumpy about the European Community's projection of economic and political ''union'' by the end of the decade, and British Prime Minister John Major might love to bury the whole idea at the forthcoming EC summit in Edinburgh. The most powerful politician in Europe, however, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, is battling hard for that Maastricht goal.Such activism is a big gamble. And it's highly unusual. Mr. Kohl's preferred political style is to act by inaction, letting outside pressure build to force the kind of movement he desires.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Denmark will have another chance t vote for European unity Tuesday, but it may be too late to put the movement back on track any time soon.Fundamental doubts about the European Community's march to political and economic unity -- common European defense and foreign policies, a single EC currency -- have spread to all the community's major countries. Germany is worried about losing its currency, France about its identity and Britain about itssovereignty.In this atmosphere, a yes vote in Denmark might not be enough to give EC political leaders the will and the popular support they need to press toward unity.

Paris -- The unification of Europe has come to an awkward pause as a direct result of the agreement meant to accelerate it. The Treaty of Maastricht, agreed at the last summit meeting of the European governments in December, now awaits ratification the public or parliaments in the member-states of the European Community. Several are balking.The treaty includes provisions limiting the sovereignty of the Community states. The most dramatic is creation of an independent European Central Bank, with a common currency for Europe, the ''ecu,'' an English acronym for ''European currency unit.

LONDON -- The long and turbulent campaign for th Maastricht treaty on European union might climax this week in Britain's House of Commons.John Major has put his premiership on the line in the debate that will open Wednesday on the controversial treaty. Should he lose, many believe he will be finished as leader of the Conservative Party.So committed to the treaty is Mr. Major that about a week ago he let it be known to reporters accompanying him on a visit to Egypt that if it was defeated, he would ask the Queen to call a general election -- that is, risk his party's grip on the government.

South of Netherlands proper on the map is an appendage, surrounded by Belgium on the west and Germany on the east, closer to France and Luxembourg than to Amsterdam. The chief town is Maastricht. It would be hard to find a more "European" place.Today and tomorrow, the heads of the 12 governments in the European Community will meet in Maastricht to iron out the sticking points after year-long negotiations at lower levels on two agreements: one, for a future European monetary union (or Emu, which is also a fat bird that does not fly)

BRUSSELS -- Western Europe's political leaders will meet today and tomorrow to try to forge their diverse nations into a unified continent that could ultimately rival the United States in diplomatic as well as economic might.A "United States of Europe," if one is to develop at all, remains years or probably decades away. The immediate goals are more modest: to cement Western Europe's economic union, which began in earnest in the mid-1980s, and to support it with "political union" -- a mechanism for developing common policies in such areas as foreign relations and even defense.

Ever dream of having breakfast in Germany, lunch in `f Luxembourg, cocktails in Belgium and dinner in Holland? How about all in the same day? It can't be done, right?Wrong. I dined in all four countries during a single day trip from the Dutch town of Maastricht. And I managed it all on only a half tank of gas.The oldest city in the Netherlands, and which lent its name as site of negotations for a European treaty on monetary union, Maastricht (population 117,000) makes an outstanding travel base for excursions into neighboring nations.

Bonn.--Maastricht isn't dead yet. To be sure, Danish, British and even German voters are grumpy about the European Community's projection of economic and political ''union'' by the end of the decade, and British Prime Minister John Major might love to bury the whole idea at the forthcoming EC summit in Edinburgh. The most powerful politician in Europe, however, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, is battling hard for that Maastricht goal.Such activism is a big gamble. And it's highly unusual. Mr. Kohl's preferred political style is to act by inaction, letting outside pressure build to force the kind of movement he desires.

LONDON -- The long and turbulent campaign for th Maastricht treaty on European union might climax this week in Britain's House of Commons.John Major has put his premiership on the line in the debate that will open Wednesday on the controversial treaty. Should he lose, many believe he will be finished as leader of the Conservative Party.So committed to the treaty is Mr. Major that about a week ago he let it be known to reporters accompanying him on a visit to Egypt that if it was defeated, he would ask the Queen to call a general election -- that is, risk his party's grip on the government.

LONDON -- No one could have foreseen what the European Community's leaders were unleashing on that cold day last November in Maastricht, the Netherlands, when they approved the treaty on European political and monetary union.Their intention was to further European unity. But the treaty seems to be producing the opposite effect. Nothing in the EC's 35-year history has introduced such dissension as the Maastricht Treaty.The reaction against Maastricht has provoked questioning about the basic idea of the EC, which posits that the economic and political integration of the states of Europe will make them a stronger entity, enable them to better compete with the two superpowers of the world economy, the United States and Japan.

Washington. -- The people, worms that they are, are capable of any depravity, particularly with ballots. So Europe's governing class has not consulted the people unduly about plans for ever-closer European union. Or is it to be federalism? Whatever, the people will be told their destination, in due time.But on Sunday the French people may commit what advanced thinkers everywhere consider the ultimate impudence. They may vote against the Maastricht Treaty, thereby producing a prudent pause in a process hitherto virtually untinged with democracy.

Paris -- The unification of Europe has come to an awkward pause as a direct result of the agreement meant to accelerate it. The Treaty of Maastricht, agreed at the last summit meeting of the European governments in December, now awaits ratification the public or parliaments in the member-states of the European Community. Several are balking.The treaty includes provisions limiting the sovereignty of the Community states. The most dramatic is creation of an independent European Central Bank, with a common currency for Europe, the ''ecu,'' an English acronym for ''European currency unit.

London. -- Who are the British? What do they want? Are they Europeans committed to a destiny shared with the other states on the ancient continent? Or are they something else -- Atlanticists, a people with one hand extended across the English Channel, the other groping westward across the ocean in solidarity with the English-speaking democracies?Or are they, as their greatest poet described them, a special breed apart, a people living in "This little world," content with their separateness?

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands -- The word "irreversible" has come to dominate the European Community summit here as a majority of the 12 member-states appear determined to launch the EC into a new phase of its life, one from which there can be no turning back.Last night the 12 tentatively agreed to a formula that would fix the currency rates of the community members possibly by 1996, if the economies of at least seven countries meet stiff criteria by then.If not, a decision would be made automatically in 1999 to go to monetary union.

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands -- The word "irreversible" has come to dominate the European Community summit here as a majority of the 12 member-states appear determined to launch the EC into a new phase of its life, one from which there can be no turning back.Last night the 12 tentatively agreed to a formula that would fix the currency rates of the community members possibly by 1996, if the economies of at least seven countries meet stiff criteria by then.If not, a decision would be made automatically in 1999 to go to monetary union.

South of Netherlands proper on the map is an appendage, surrounded by Belgium on the west and Germany on the east, closer to France and Luxembourg than to Amsterdam. The chief town is Maastricht. It would be hard to find a more "European" place.Today and tomorrow, the heads of the 12 governments in the European Community will meet in Maastricht to iron out the sticking points after year-long negotiations at lower levels on two agreements: one, for a future European monetary union (or Emu, which is also a fat bird that does not fly)