The Maastricht Treaty
A trading community becomes a union with common citizenship
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The treaty also set the criteria for joining the currency union — limits on debt and deficit — which became central during the debt crisis twenty years later. Denmark rejected the treaty by referendum and won opt-outs; Norway voted against membership in 1994. The project's core idea is older: that countries which trade and legislate together do not go to war with each other.
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Twelve European countries agreed to move from a trading arrangement to the European Union, with common citizenship and plans for a shared currency. A continent that had warred for centuries bound itself together by treaty.
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