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Was Maastricht the beginning or the end?

EU leaders return to Maastricht for a conference 20 years after Treaty

On 7 February 2012, the European Union (EU) celebrated its 20th anniversary, established with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Today, the EU is facing the most important challenge in its history as it tries to save not only the Euro but also the Union itself. Maastricht University, in cooperation with the Municipality of Maastricht, organised an international conference: ‘The Maastricht Treaty: Taking Stock After 20 Years’ on 7-8 February 2012. Key EU figures, who negotiated the Maastricht Treaty 20 years ago, including former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, Enrique Baron Crespo (former President of the European Parliament) and Henning Christophersen (Vice-President of the European Commission under Jacques Delors) assessed the legacy of the Treaty and analysed the perspectives on the future of the Euro and the EU. The conference concluded with a keynote lecture by Parag Khanna, author of the international bestseller How to Run the World and a former adviser to Barack Obama.

Video registration of the first conference day

The conference began on 7 February with a Roundtable debate between Wim Kok, Enrique Baron Crespo and Henning Christophersen, who examined the relevance and legacy of the Maastricht Treaty as well as the role of the EU leaders then and now. They also reflected on the EU-summit in Brussels, which took place on last Monday. The forum took place in the same venue as the signing of the Treaty in 1992: the ‘Statenzaal of the Province of Limburg in Maastricht.  A number of EU Ambassadors to the Netherlands also attended.

The conference on Wednesday 8 February was a forum-type event with leading European and American academics and policy experts. Panelists addressed key questions, including: Was the Maastricht Treaty more a beginning or an end? Could the Euro crisis have been prevented by other or more conditions in the Maastricht Treaty, or was the crisis not a matter of Treaty conditions? And now monetary policy has been centralized in EMU countries, to what extent should other forms of economic policy be centralized too? How can that be achieved? Or is it too late? Furthermore, in the wake of the Euro-zone crisis and the plans for a fiscal compact, is a multi speed EU - or even a divided Europe - now inevitable?

The conference concluded with the keynote speech ‘Europe: The next twenty years’ by Parag Khanna (New America Foundation and European Council on Foreign Relations). Dr Khanna, a geo-strategist, world traveller and best-selling international author, is a former Advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. At the age of thirty, Esquire named him one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.

For more information, please refer to the conference website.