Maastricht

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.

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.

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...

LONDON -- Growing doubts that the economic-unification treaty will be approved in its present form roiled financial markets in Europe again yesterday. The increasing concerns about the treaty, negotiated last year at the Dutch town of Maastricht, also left businesses uncertain about how to plan for the future.The erosion in public support for the plan fueled already heightened fears in the markets that interest rates would have to rise in Britain, Italy and perhaps France. The Bank of England intervened in foreign currency markets yesterday for the first time since the value of the German mark began surging last week.

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...

LONDON -- Britain's Prime Minister John Major just barely saved his government last night, his political career and possibly the Maastricht Treaty of European Union.At least for the time being.In two successive ballots in the House of Commons -- the first of which he won by six votes, the second by three -- he opened the way for the final ratification process of the treaty in Britain.The first vote was on a resolution proposed by the Labor Party to delay consideration of the treaty until after the Dec. 11 European Community summit in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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.

Step by unprecedented step Western Europe moves toward union. Though American headlines more often focus on disagreements among the 12 member-states of the European Community and failures in collaboration among them, actual developments testify to the magnetic power of the idea of Europe -- for ''the 12,'' and for the rest of Europe as well.Several recent events show that European peoples who have fought and died to preserve their independence and sovereignty -- from each other -- are now ready to forgo or ''transfer'' that sovereignty to a supra-national European entity still being created.

LONDON -- Twenty years ago yesterday, the British Parliament endorsed a Conservative government's decision to join the European Common Market. The Labor Party opposed it.How things change.Today, opposition to the European Community is centered in the Conservative Party and is growing, threatening the party's cohesion.Labor is all pro-Europe. Neil Kinnock, the party leader, denounced the Conservatives yesterday for conducting their policy toward the EC "not on the basis of what is best for Britain but on the basis of what will keep the cracks in the Tory Party as obscure as possible."

With the compromises cobbled at the Maastricht summit, the Europe of 12 nations and 345 million people moved closer toward the superstate of their dreams. It will be far more powerful, based on economics and consent, than the one based on bombs and terror that is coincidentally disintegrating a thousand miles to the east. And it will grow. The Maastricht treaty defines what it is that Austria and Sweden will soon join, followed by others.The agreement on a single European currency by decade's end, the "Ecu" (European currency unit)