Maastricht Treaty

LONDON -- The jitters aroused in Europe by fear the Maastricht treaty might be rejected in France in a referendum Sunday have been playing havoc in currency markets across the continent.But the pound, because it is one of the most widely traded currencies, has been a special target of money speculators. Prime Minister John Major and his finance minister, Norman Lamont, had pledged to defend it and stave off devaluation at all costs, despite assertions from some financial experts that the currency was overvalued.

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 -- 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...

Paris -- 1992 threatens to become the year of Europe's deconstruction. January 1993 will bring a single European market. By then there may have been a collapse of the European Community plan for monetary union and further political and security integration.The next four weeks will be decisive. On Sept. 20, the French vote in referendum to accept or reject the Maastricht treaty on further European union. If they vote no -- and they may -- the unification program is finished.Technically, the Danish public's rejection of the treaty earlier this year made ratification by the other 11 members irrelevant.

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.

Paris. -- Events have overtaken the Maastricht Treaty on European unity approved with great fanfare last December by the leaders of the 12 European Community nations, and with the passing of time it is becoming increasingly uncertain that the accord will ever be implemented in its current form.The treaty would establishes a common currency and an independent central bank to manage it, and would move the community further down the road toward creating a common foreign and security policy. It is coming under attack from a wide spectrum ranging from the left wing of European Socialist parties to the extreme right.

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.

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."

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Today the Irish people vote on the Maastricht treaty of European union -- and on their past, their future, their national dignity, as some perceive it, and on the fate of the unborn Irish child.They have made the referendum to rescue the Maastricht Treaty, following its defeat June 2 by the Danes, a bigger thing than anyone ever intended.They have invested it with their anxieties over matters apparently far removed from the question at hand. They have been obsessed with it.On Tuesday, a man devastated by beer slouched in a hotel bar on O'Connell Street, wavering in his chair, and drawing stares from the waiters and patrons, nearly all French, German and American tourists.

LONDON -- The eyes of Europe are fixed on Ireland with a steady and worried gaze, as the people on that island contemplate economic self-mutilation.Should the Irish reject the Maastricht treaty on European union in Thursday's referendum, they would kiss goodbye to possibly $9 billion that would have flowed to them out of the European Community's coffers over the next five years or so.To reject all that, when it is so badly needed in Ireland, would prove...