What is the Maastricht Treaty?
The official name of the Maastricht Treaty (1992) is the Treaty on European Union. This treaty established the EU, which absorbed (without immediately entirely replacing) the European Community. The name change reflected a desire to bring more clearly under one legal structure a series of policies that had previously been exercised outside of the normal European Community, such as foreign policy coordination (which became the Common Foreign and Security Policy) and cooperation and coordination on police and judicial matters (which became Justice and Home Affairs cooperation). The Maastricht Treaty also established a timetable and rules for the introduction of a single currency, spread more widely the practice of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers and increased the powers of the European Parliament.