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Maastricht Treaty criteria for economic growth, above all symbolised by the adherence of the ECB to the pursuit of narrow monetarism (as opposed to job creation) and by the enforcement of the 1997 Stability Pact, which forced countries to slash public spending. Hudson summarises the five key principles which would underpin EL policy as ‘full, qualified and secure employment; a leading role for public financial intervention; a sustainable economic model; defence of the public sector and public services; and guaranteed secure incomes and pensions at a level ensuring human
issue of how to assess budgetary situations which has been reached over time. The divergence of views on this issue goes back to the time when the SGP was first negotiated. The negotiations of the SGP unfolded over a period of two years. While general agreement on the basic idea of a stability pact for the EU was quickly achieved among all member states (Stark 2001) the individual aspects of the envisaged disciplining mechanism were more contested. As has been demonstrated in Chapter 2, the degree of political discretion reserved for the Council in the operation of
in the conflict since 1990. Analysis examines the precursors of Europeanisation through political and diplomatic instruments, international negotiation and mediation within the Contact Group on Kosovo, and UN-based initiatives, as well as EU integration mechanisms, such as the Regional approach (1997), Stability Pact for Southeast Europe (1999), Stabilisation and Association Process (2000), the
decisions to achieve them. In practice it has created problems that are at least as awkward. The stability pact has not held because in 2003 France and Germany so conspicuously disregarded the rules, despite having voted to enforce them two years earlier against Portugal. In so doing, they inflicted grievous damage on any notion that the authority of the EU institutions over monetary union could be impersonal or an agent to realise a European common good. But without some faith among the politicians and citizens of the euro states that monetary union will not produce
. Therefore, countries must be subject to fiscal disciplines, i.e. to keep borrowing down to a reasonable level. This principle has been enshrined in the so-called ‘stability pact’ among member states. To demonstrate its importance, even Germany, the Union’s biggest economy, received a warning over its high borrowing levels early in 2002. The ECB is charged with the task of maintaining the three principles described above. It does this by controlling money supply, setting an interest rate for the euro-zone and by ensuring that members keep within set borrowing levels
personal interests happened to be at stake. More fundamentally, a lack of reform, at least in economic and social areas, was due to the failure of the hoped-for economic growth to materialise, which was necessary given the constraints of the public debt and the EU’s Growth and Stability Pact. All this added grist to the mill of critics who found Berlusconi’s leadership wanting – as well as supplying an additional reason for the entrepreneur to attempt to shore up his decreasingly convincing claims in this area by complaining that not only the ‘communist’ opposition but
of a continental European model of socio-economic development and the transfer of Irish monetary policy from a Sterling to a Deutschmark (and subsequently Euro) base within the constraints of the so-called ‘Maastricht criteria’ for membership of the single currency (O’Donnell 1998) and subsequent Stability Pact. Following initial Irish membership of the European Communities there was a minor economic boom as the Irish economy adjusted itself to substantially higher agricultural prices and the state succeeded in attracting some significant Foreign Direct Investment
-track’ approach, combining a firm commitment to NATO’s aerial bombardment, together with intensive diplomatic efforts aimed at averting military action. Inherent in Germany’s diplomatic behaviour were strong traits of multilateralism through the use of international institutions and bodies (i.e. G8, the EU, Quint) as means towards a solution. Through the special Kosovo summit in April in Cologne particularly, Germany, as president of the EU, took forward the idea of a broad stability pact for South-East Europe, promoting the importance of bringing the countries of the region into
Summit in June 1993 they were transformed into a perspective on enlargement of the European Union. A so-called Stability Pact was designed in order to de-escalate potential conflicts in the Central and Eastern parts of Europe. Furthermore, the Eastern enlargement can be regarded as a huge foreign policy initiative significantly increasing the scope of innumerable European regimes, from the entire acquis communautaire to administrative
the sense that they are able to explain and justify their actions. Thus a logic of appropriateness is seen to grow out of duty rather than of habit. 5 These lessons also inspired agreement on a French plan for a Stability Pact in Europe. The Pact was a forum in which the Central and Eastern European applicants were strongly encouraged to