February 7th - Maastricht Treaty

On this day, in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty, which lead to the European Union, was signed. Even today the European Union is regarded as a mildly OK idea. As well as bringing the EU to life likeFrankenstein's monster, the treaty also created the euro, which was the new European currency that replaced bags of salt and black-market ABBA tickets.

It took a great effort to get the treaty ratified by all the member states. In France and Britain support for the treaty was only marginal. In Denmark, the Danes spit on the treaty in a resounding referendum loss of 50,000 votes. Take that progress! All parties eventually decided to play ball and one can only assume that it has been plain sailing ever since.

What really got the Danes on board was that they got their own protocol. This matter pertains to the operations of the National Bank of Denmark to continue performing its operations in those parts of the Kingdom of Denmark that are not a part of the European Union, if it pleases meLud (my Lord). The Treaty is filled with all sorts of stuff like this that no one will ever be interested in, let alone read.

An idea like the European Union is too good to only have one lousy treaty. The EU is based on a few of the most boring documents you could ever possibly choose to not read. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris created the European Coal and Steel Community, and you best believe they had a long, tedious speech. This treaty was signed to create stability in post-war Europe and the Coal and Steel Community went on to become a part of the EU. The EU has even more treaties; the city of Rome is attributed with not one, but many large documents that didn't top the New York Times Bestseller list. These treaties, signed in 1957, created some of the firstsuper-national organisations for economic and nuclear administration.

The Maastricht Treaty created a pillar system for the EU. There was the community pillar, which took care of economic and social policies, and organised shirts vs skins football matches, the Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar managed military matters, and the police pillar took on the fight against crime.

Before you get too excited and run off to tell your best girl about the pillar system, you should wait just one second. The 2007 Treaty of Lisbon came into effect on the 1st of December 2009. This treaty's most important point is that the pillars will be merged into one legal person nicknamed "Diego." This legal person concept is a little bit misleading. The pillars will be regarded as a legal person only for legal reasons, which enables it to do more in a legal capacity. There will be no need to create some kind of super-human/lawyer hybrid with eugenics, which is banned under the treaty of Lisbon.

The EU is a noble effort to create a legal spider-web that no one but Diego can understand. Shame on you France and Finland.