Maastricht recalls euphoria of 1992 treaty with optimistic program for reconstruction
Maastricht, a picturesque Dutch city of cobblestone streets and medieval arches, on Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of the European treaty bearing its name, showing rare optimism and hope amid rising euroscepticism.
Sandwiched just a few kilometers between Liege in Belgium and Aachen in Germany, this southern provincial capital bore witness more than two decades ago to the birth of an audacious plan to integrate Europe’s countries into one union.
On Feb 7, 1992, the whole town was swept up in the euphoria of the moment, recalled Limburg provincial governor Theo Bovens.
“You could feel the pro-Europe atmosphere,” he said.
On that day, in a new provincial building on the banks of the River Maas, the 12 nations of the then European Economic Community signed the Maastricht Treaty, which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.
Twenty-five years on, after a series of crises — a plummeting euro, Greece’s political and economic woes, a wave of immigration unprecedented since World War II and Brexit — Maastricht and its 120,000 inhabitants feel the city still has an essential, even existential, role to play.
“I think we should try to light the candle again, this little spark that still is there, to make sure that this European dream that we had 25 years ago is going to be a dream again and not the nightmare that we are fearing now,” said Maastricht Mayor Annemarie Penn-te Strake.
“Because this is the Maastricht Treaty we feel indebted and have to pay attention to the fact that we are living in an era in which Europe ... has a lot of problems, a lot of skepticism, and a lot of anger.”
Local authorities are pleading for a return to the ideals and values enshrined in the treaty, which they fear too many EU members have become disconnected from.
They yearn for a renewed embrace of the idea of European citizenship, for a better focus on improving working and living conditions, and to change labyrinthine structures that have become too institutional.
The small province will soon send to Brussels a program of ideas culled from a year of debates on how to reconstruct Europe in an organic fashion from the ground up.
“We don’t need less of Europe, we need another Europe,” said Bovens, criticizing those countries he sees as still too inward-looking.
But charting a path toward a stronger EU will be a difficult task in “this Europe which is bigger, but also more divisive,” said Sophie Vanhoonacker, an expert in European affairs at Maastricht University.
“Political leaders must step up and shoulder their responsibilities, but it is not certain they will,” she said.