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Maastricht Treaty (maastricht + treaty)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting33%

Selected Abstracts

Five Danish referendums on the European Community and European Union: A critical assessment of the Franklin thesis

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2002
Palle Svensson
Denmark had five referendums in the period from 1972 to 1998 dealing with Danish membership in the European Community, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Edinburgh Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty. Did the Danes really address these issues and involve themselves actively in the policy,making process on a vital issue or did they merely vote for or against the current government? The latter option represents the ,second order' elections argument advanced by Mark Franklin and others (see Franklin's article in this issue). If correct in this instance, it may have important and negative consequences for the potential of referendums to involve citizens more directly in the way they are governed. In this article, the Franklin thesis is assessed on the basis of data on voting behaviour in five Danish referendums on Europe and the democratic implications of these findings are discussed. [source]

Learning from the Danish case: A comment on Palle Svensson's critique of the Franklin thesis

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2002
Mark N. Franklin
Palle Svensson in this issue of EJPR has objected to the characterisation of Danish voters made by Franklin and others who, in various publications, expounded the thesis that on issues of low salience, referendum votes tend to follow party lines. Svensson finds evidence that the Maastricht Treaty was not an issue of low salience to Danish voters in the ratification referendums conducted there, and gives other details of the evolution of public opinion regarding Europe that clarify the circumstances in which our thesis should apply. In the light of his arguments, this Comment presents a more nuanced version of the thesis that learns from the Danish case, and should be of greater utility than our earlier version in helping to interpret the role of government standing in referendum outcomes. [source]

International Migration and State Sovereignty in an Integrating Europe

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 6 2001
Andrew Geddes
This article examines the development of migration policy competencies of the European Union (EU) since the 1990s. It pays particular attention to policy framework that developed after the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties entered into effect in 1993 and 1999 respectively. In order to chart these developments, the article focuses on five analytical themes that illustrate key trends in EU migration policy. Reasons for and implications of shift from "pillarization" in the Maastricht Treaty to "communitarization" in the Amsterdam Treaty. , Blurring of the distinction between external and internal security. , The role that supranational institutions such as the European Commission are playing (or trying to play) in policy development. , Debates about migrants' rights in an integrating Europe. , Links between migration and EU enlargement. It is argued that far from weakening EU member states or symbolizing some "loss of control", EU cooperation and integration have thus far helped member states consolidate and reassert their ability to regulate international migration through the use of new EU-level institutional venues. This raises legitimacy issues as the EU moves into politically sensitive policy areas. Although talk of "fortress Europe" is overblown, the EU is likely to face legitimacy challenges on both the "input" (democracy, openness and accountability of decision-making) and "output" (implementation and compliance) elements of decision-making. [source]

German Interests in European Monetary Integration

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2002
Karl Kaltenthaler
This article explores the sources of the German govermnent's position on European monetary integration since the first attempt at monetary union. I argue that German policy on European monetary integration was, until after EMU, driven by German foreign policy elites' perception that integration could be used to achieve their primary geo-political goal, embedding Germany in European institutions to dismantle the security dilemma with its European neighbours, particularly with France. After the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, this situation was reversed, as domestic economic interests and state financial authorities have taken the lead in shaping Germany's policy on European monetary integration, with foreign policy elites playing a secondary role. Thus German policy has come to resemble more the policies of other European monetary union member states, in that domestic economic concerns have taken precedence over geo-political interests in the making of policy on European monetary integration. [source]

Time Inconsistency and Free-Riding in a Monetary Union

JOURNAL OF MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING, Issue 7 2008
VARADARAJAN V. CHARI
monetary regime; fixed exchange rates; dollarization; European Union; Maastricht Treaty In monetary unions, a time inconsistency problem in monetary policy leads to a novel type of free-rider problem in the setting of non-monetary policies. The free-rider problem leads union members to pursue lax non-monetary policies that induce the monetary authority to generate high inflation. Free-riding can be mitigated by imposing constraints on non-monetary policies. Without a time inconsistency problem, the union has no free-rider problem; then constraints on non-monetary policies are unnecessary and possibly harmful. This theory is here detailed and applied to several non-monetary policies: labor market policy, fiscal policy, and bank regulation. [source]

PUBLIC DEBT AS PRIVATE WEALTH: SOME EQUILIBRIUM CONSIDERATIONS

METROECONOMICA, Issue 4 2006
Article first published online: 13 NOV 200, Ekkehart Schlicht
ABSTRACT Government bonds are interest-bearing assets. Increasing public debt increases wealth, income and consumption demand. The smaller government expenditure is, the larger consumption demand must be in equilibrium, and the larger must be public debt. Conversely, lower public debt implies higher government spending and taxation. Public debt plays, thus, an important role in establishing equilibrium. It distributes output between consumers and government. In case of insufficient demand, a larger public debt entails higher private consumption and less public spending. If upper bounds on public debt are introduced (as in the Maastricht treaty), such constraints place lower bounds on taxation and public spending and may rule out macroeconomic equilibrium. As an aside, a minor flaw in Domar's (American Economic Review, 34 (4), pp. 798,827) classical analysis is corrected. [source]