The Maastricht Treaty on unity among the 12 European Community members, approved by the European Council in December 1991, has been ratified by 10 nations and awaits the approval of Denmark and Britain. It also faces legal challenges in Germany's constitutional court.
The text, which is divided into six parts, amounts to a revision of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community in 1958. The EC emerged from the amalgamation of the EEC, the European Atomic Energy Community and European Coal and Steel Community in 1967.
Maastricht, named after the Dutch city where the proposed treaty was approved, is the most thoroughgoing revision of the Treaty of Rome yet.
Its main provisions call for:
--Economic and monetary union, including a single currency. This would come about in three stages. The third, which would begin as early as Jan. 1, 1997, and certainly by Jan. 1, 1999, commits EC nations meeting conditions on budget deficits, inflation, interest rates and exchange rates to adopt a single currency. Britain and Denmark are not obliged to participate in the single currency.
--Common foreign and defense policies. Defense would initially be devolved on the Western European Union, but a defense organization could start taking shape at the next EC constitutional review in 1996. Denmark, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is not obliged to participate.
--Cohesion funds to transfer wealth from richer to poorer member states. The main recipients now are Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
--Increased cooperation on judicial, immigration and police matters. Denmark is exempt.
--Common policy on workers' rights. This provision implements the 1989 Social Charter on workers' health and safety, working conditions and equal opportunity.
--Union citizenship. Denmark is excepted.
--Widening of qualified majority voting. Proposals in the European Council in the areas affected -- including the free flow of goods, money, people and services -- can no longer be held up for years by objections by one or two members.
