The Maastricht Treaty was enacted on the 1st of November, 1993, under the guidance of Helmut Kohl, German chancellor and Francois Mitterrand, the president of France. The treaty had been signed by various European Community members the previous year and proved a path-paver in formally establishing the European Union and the euro currency.
For these reasons, the Maastricht Treaty is formally known as the Treaty on European Union.
The Maastricht Treaty brought after it a chain of global achievements. The European Economic Community came to be known as the European Community. What began as an amalgamation of just about 12 countries gradually expanded and led to the cooperative corporation of many other nations in the coming years. It also proved instrumental in establishing the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks, whose chief aim was to safeguard the value of the euro currency.
The Maastricht Treaty also ensured price stability as and when new countries joined the Union. For this, the Treaty also laid down specific terms and conditions to be satisfied by the governments to merge with the Union. These conditions are collectively called the Maastricht criteria.
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