In its summer 1991 edition, the federalist journal L’Europe en formation analyses the draft Treaty on European Union drawn up by the Luxembourg Presidency, and revives the debate on the union’s ‘federal vocation’.

On 10 December 1991, the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl (centre), the Foreign Minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher (left) and the Spokesman for the German Government, Dieter Vogel (right), give a press conference on the outcome of the Maastricht European Council.

„Maastricht. Politische Union“. Am 9. Dezember 1991 illustriert der deutsche Karikaturist Walter Hanel das Bestreben des deutschen Bundeskanzlers Helmut Kohl und des Präsidenten der Französischen Republik, François Mitterrand, die Verhandlungen zur Überarbeitung der europäischen Verträge für die Schaffung einer europäischen politischen Union zu nutzen, von der der britische Premierminister John Major nur wenig begeistert ist.

In einem Kommentar vom 12. Dezember 1991 zum Europäischen Rat von Maastricht untersucht die französische Tageszeitung Le Monde die Bedeutung des neuen Vertrages über die politische Union und beschreibt die wirtschaftlichen, währungspolitischen und sozialen Herausforderungen Europas.

In its Opinion of 21 October 1990, the European Commission advocates a single Community that will encompass the Community policies and European Political Cooperation (EPC), making them subject to the same institutions and to the same decision-making procedures.

By this Resolution of 11 July 1990, the European Parliament welcomes the convening of a Conference on Political Union and the fact that the agenda of the forthcoming reform of the Treaties is to be widened beyond economic and monetary union. Whereas the division between external economic relations and European Political Cooperation (EPC) is increasingly difficult to maintain in practice, the European Parliament calls for these two aspects of the Community’s international action to be dealt with within the Community framework.

On 14 March 1990, the European Parliament adopts a resolution in which it emphasises, in particular, the need rapidly to transform ‘the European Community into a Political Union, on a federal basis, stretching beyond the single market and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)’, and reiterates its determination to establish the conditions for Parliament’s involvement in the work of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC).

In its summer 1990 edition, the federalist journal L’Europe en formation reports on the Dublin European Council of 25 and 26 June 1990 and emphasises the need for the Europe of the Twelve to pursue a common foreign policy if it is to establish its presence in the world.