Having satisfied the Maastricht criteria, fiscal policies have been geared to putting on brakes.

Portugal, Germany, and France proudly declare their intention to deviate from the Maastricht criteria.

In hindsight, benchmarks of the candidates' ability to manage these risks should have supplemented the existing Maastricht criteria for adopting the euro.

Nor is it realistic to believe that Russia will come close anytime soon to meeting the EU's Maastricht criteria for macroeconomic performance.

The Maastricht convergence criteria that led to the euro's creation worked because they were imposed by a multinational agreement and were monitored multinationally.

Nor is it the result of the collapse of a speculation fueled asset bubble, the violation of the Maastricht criteria, ballooning debt, or greedy banks.

Portugal, Germany, and France proudly declare their intention to deviate from the Maastricht criteria. But it is America that is leading the attack on fiscal discipline.

Politicians will push for more control and probably get it, Maastricht treaty or no Maastricht treaty.

Maastricht treaty or no Maastricht treaty, loss of public support for the ECB will diminish its independence.

Should this continue, perhaps bringing a de facto end to the Maastricht criteria and rising national protectionism in the form of industrial subsidies, the euro will be seriously jeopardized.

In Europe, meanwhile, the consensus was embodied in the European Union's Growth and Stability Pact and made operational in the rigid Maastricht criteria that capped government budget deficits at 3 of GDP.

Four criteria seem to be essential

Our criteria belong to the past.

Criteria for these choices were simple

The Maastricht Treaty contains the striking phrase overall harmonious development.

Especially with regard to financial and currency issues, the EU has a strong institutional base the euro as a common currency, the European Central Bank, and the binding budget and debt criteria of the Maastricht Treaty.

Nor is it realistic to believe that Russia will come close anytime soon to meeting the EU's Maastricht criteria for macroeconomic performance. Russia's fiscal balance has improved dramatically over the last two years, but the rapid economic growth and moderate currency depreciation that Russia needs to catch up with Europe will keep inflation higher than the Maastricht ceiling.

Instead of exploiting the current opportunity of unprecedented leverage over euro candidates to push them to meet the Maastricht criteria, euro incumbents are contemplating a new and exceedingly vague criterion based on the quality of banking systems.

But here there was no sheep like criteria.

And they had certain criteria to do it.

The ECB s use of OMT satisfies both criteria.

Instead, the EU emphasized the technical criteria of membership.

But if it goes too fast, the political cost could be substantial and irreversible. Politicians will push for more control and probably get it, Maastricht treaty or no Maastricht treaty.

The exclusion of members who violate the Maastricht Treaty is off the table.

The Maastricht agreement and the launch of euro were landmarks of that process.

But could something like the Maastricht process be used to implement structural reform?

The Maastricht Treaty envisaged a simple policy framework for economic and monetary union.

So they have all the criteria that people normally like.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was probably the last masterpiece of Franco German creativity.

When the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated, the Germans considered this provision an important concession.

Maastricht was thus intended to prevent a situation like the current one in Greece.

To make this body viable, realistic criteria must underpin its design.

The caps on member states budget deficits and public debt imposed by the Maastricht criteria have proven relatively early on to be of limited use in the real world, and the same is true for the monitoring tools linked to these limits. In any case, the Maastricht rules were never designed for a perfect storm like the one triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

If the Danes did not want the Maastricht Treaty, their choice would be fully respected.

The result was the 1991 Maastricht Treaty the point when European integration went into overdrive.

Suppose Greece took 25 years to bring it down to the Maastricht ceiling of 60 .

In a stable world, Maastricht Treaty s rules based framework, if enforced, might do the job.

I was selected for the school in Maastricht, the Netherlands as the representative of Pakistan.

There are as yet no Copenhagen criteria to guide constitution makers here.

Adaptation of the EU's economic criteria should focus on the following areas

Scientific appointments should rest on objective criteria of training, ability, and performance.

The final two criteria inflation and interest rates are also a mess.

Obviously, registration numbers after 20,000 were given based on strictly IQ criteria.

Overly strict qualification criteria are likely to deter members that may need this kind of support most from applying for it but overly loose criteria may stigmatize potential users.

The last landmark in the Franco German partnership was the Treaty of Maastricht, concluded in 1991.