Ratifying Maastricht

Abstract

When signing the new Treaty on European Union in Maastricht, the governmental leaders of the 12 member countries of the European Communities had accomplished a significant step towards economic and political union. Before taking effect the draft proposal had, however, to be ratified according to the procedures of the 12 member countries. We discuss and analyze these different ratification procedures by focusing on the parliamentary stage. Applying the two-level game concept of international cooperation we show that a two-dimensional representation of the Maastricht draft treaty sufficiently explains the domestic events that occurred during the ratification process. Besides extending the Maastricht negotiation win-set linking economic and political objectives, the two-dimensionality particularly increased the 12 governments' likelihood to survive the ratification constraints in their domestic arena. Using spatial solution concepts from social choice theory as tools, we attempt to illustrate with empirical data how `big' the domestic win-sets of the 12 were in the parliamentary ratification.