ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the types of commitments undertaken in Maastricht and the assumptions underpinning the treaty's commitment to achieve Economic and Monetary Union; the movement toward convergence among the economies of member states of the European Union (EU). It also includes the centrifugal pressures that have challenged French policy specifically and the movement toward Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) generally. The whole scenario for achieving EMU described in the Maastricht Treaty appeared feasible at the beginning of 1992. The implementation of the various institutional steps toward EMU has been scrupulously kept to the schedule agreed upon in the Maastricht Treaty. The Maastricht Treaty offers a fairly detailed account of the way EMU should be progressively realized by the EU. The treaty takes for granted the progress in the fields of market integration since the enactment of the Rome Treaty and of the Single European Act of 1986, and of "nominal convergence" amongst member states.
