Maastricht Treaty

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 electoral rout of the French right actually serves conservatism. It gives Socialists another opportunity to demonstrate the delusional nature of their policies, and to toss fistfuls of gravel into the gears of the machinery driving Europe toward an anti-democratic unity. Europe's political class has arrogantly fostered unification over the heads of increasingly unpersuaded peoples.President Chirac called early parliamentary elections to get a mandate for overdue austerities.

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.

PARIS -- The European Union has never been in greater difficulties, and the meeting in Turin to reform European institutions, which began Friday, is an effort to turn away from the precipice. It will succeed, in that something that can be called ''Europe'' will survive revision of the Maastricht Treaty reforms, but no one can now say what that ''Europe'' will be.The Turin meeting anticipates conflict on a common currency, Europe's power structures, unemployment and social policy. However it will be impossible for the delegates to ignore the imbroglio created by Britain's announcement that ''Mad Cow'' disease may have leaped from ruminant mammal to Homo sapiens (the result, it would seem, of the decision by Homo sapiens, in his greed, to make the herbivore into a carnivore by feeding it the ground-up cadavers of its relative the sheep.

A policy on gays in the military is not easy. There are two ga members of Congress, and they disagree.The meaning of "Honor Code" at the Naval Academy in the stolen exam case (like the Mafia's) makes clear how the Tailhook scandal could happen.They wanted a hawk for poet laureate. So they got Dove.Cheer up. Danes approved the Maastricht Treaty."Star Wars" is being converted from a black hole to a burnt-out nova.

SKIBBEREEN, Ireland -- The Irish gave the Maastricht Treaty on European union a kiss of life yesterday, with nearly 70 percent approving the same document narrowly rejected less than a month ago by the Danes."

BERLIN -- Chancellor Helmut Kohl capped a week of attack and maneuver yesterday with a vigorous defense before the German Parliament of the Maastricht Treaty for European unity."

While Germany calls the shots in Europe to the discomfort of others, the French relish their role in Sunday's referendum. They alone will decide if the supernational unification movement in Europe goes forward or backward. In the last poll, they were split down the middle.The Maastricht Treaty for monetary union was a natural progression for Eurocrats. The officials and politicians in the European Community are pushing the transformation of formerly warring powers into one economic superpower.

LONDON -- Once again the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary and Political Union is at the center of a crisis of British politics.Once again John Major's career as prime minister is exposed to danger as the House of Commons prepares for a vote tomorrow on the controversial Social Chapter of the treaty.The Maastricht treaty would move the European Community countries toward monetary union and a single currency, possibly by the end of the century. It creates mechanisms for the formulation of common EC defense and diplomatic polices.

LONDON -- The Maastricht Treaty on European monetary and political union is in trouble again, and in France of all places.The Danes in June rejected the treaty because, among other reasons, they resented their political leaders' attempts to frighten them into approving it.Today French political leaders are doing the same thing: They are predicting political and economic disarray, chaos even, should the French people veto the treaty in their referendum, set...

Norway has higher standards of living, welfare, environmental protection, agricultural subsidy and women's advancement than the 12-nation European Union, supported by oil and gas wealth and fish-rich coastal waters. Why would Norway share its wealth to obtain lower standards?Why, indeed? It won't. The negative vote in the advisory referendum on joining the European Union, Monday, insures that the parliament will keep Norway out of the EU when Finland, Sweden and Austria join on Jan. 1. It was probably the wrong decision, but only time will tell.

Paris.The Russian army has marched out of Berlin with panache, taking with it the Cold War -- and leaving Germany with its historical problem: that it lies in the center of Europe.A German official said recently that the goal of German policy today is that the country never again finds itself ''with the West on our western border and the East on our eastern border.'' What Germany wants, he said, is to have the West on its eastern border as well. That is the reason Germany has been so anxious to bring Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into the European community and other Western institutions.

Brussels.--The Europeans have patched Humpty Dumpty (P together again. As of yesterday, the new European Union is the result.The sound of celebration on this historic day is neither a cheer nor a Bronx cheer, but a sigh and a shrug. Euphoria is no more. Neither is the lust for the Margaret Thatcher-type battles. The important issues -- recession, 17 million structurally unemployed and the French threat to scupper international trade negotiations -- have been shoved off to the December summit of the European Community.

LONDON -- Once again the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary and Political Union is at the center of a crisis of British politics.Once again John Major's career as prime minister is exposed to danger as the House of Commons prepares for a vote tomorrow on the controversial Social Chapter of the treaty.The Maastricht treaty would move the European Community countries toward monetary union and a single currency, possibly by the end of the century. It creates mechanisms for the formulation of common EC defense and diplomatic polices.

A policy on gays in the military is not easy. There are two ga members of Congress, and they disagree.The meaning of "Honor Code" at the Naval Academy in the stolen exam case (like the Mafia's) makes clear how the Tailhook scandal could happen.They wanted a hawk for poet laureate. So they got Dove.Cheer up. Danes approved the Maastricht Treaty."Star Wars" is being converted from a black hole to a burnt-out nova.

PARIS -- When British citizen Dana McEvans decided to mov to France this year, she figured it would be little problem. She speaks excellent French and had a job tailor-made for the new Europe: studying pan-European marketing and advertising trends.Add to this the fact that a borderless Europe has been in place since Jan. 1 and that Europe was moving toward greater integration under the Maastricht treaty, and her confidence was understandable. A few formalities and she could start work."I was completely wrong," the 28-year-old marketing researcher said.

Washington--The dramatic events of recent years have transformed Europe. Cold-war assumptions no longer apply. The military threat has been dismissed, and economic concerns have become more important. In this context, the 12-member European Community has emerged as a powerful international player.The EC is a financial and political magnet for the entire continent, especially the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. Countries as diverse as Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Cyprus, Malta and Turkey want to join.

Ireland, by ratifying the Maastricht Treaty in a thumping referendum, puts the plan for a single European currency by century's end back on track. Had the Irish rejected this, immediately after the Danish rejection, the whole movement toward a unified Europe -- a single economy based on the current European Community membership -- would have crumbled.As it is, the treaty calls for unanimity which the Danish rejection prevents. But this can now be seen as a surmountable hurdle, calling for a minor rewriting of the rules now, a second appeal to Danish voters later on. Had the only two referendums to be held in the ratification process gone against it, the notion would have been unstoppable that parliamentary acceptances elsewhere represented only the detachment of Europe's politicians and bureaucrats from their constituents.

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.

LONDON -- The so-called Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty of European political and monetary union -- which Prime Minister John Major so adroitly avoided 16 months ago when the treaty was signed -- has now become the instrument that could destroy the treaty, and possibly bring down his government as well.In a stroke that seemed likely to win over reluctant Britons, Mr. Major had argued successfully at the Dutch town of Maastricht that his people should not have to accept the provisions that would allow bureaucrats in Brussels, Belgium, to decide how many hours Britons could legally work, the lengths of their vacations, factory safety standards, what benefits British women would have in the workplace and other services guaranteed in many Continental countries.