Britain and the Maastricht negotiations1999

Anthony Forster examines the British government's negotiation of the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty) which took place between December 1990 and December 1991. He provides a detailed account of both strands of the negotiations, the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union (IGC-PU) and the Intergovernmental Conference on Economic and Monetary Union (IGC-EMU). On the basis of documentary and interview-based evidence of leading participants from Britain and Europe, he casts doubt on the claim that the government won the negotiations game, set and match and analyses the enormous party-management problems and international pressures that John Major had to balance on succeeding Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister.