Abstract
In the negotiations that led to the Maastricht Treaty, some countries expressed concern about what would happen if monetary union were pursued in the absence of adequate political union.1 By way of illustration, consider whether sanctions may be imposed upon a country that ends up with an excessive budgetary deficit. In the context of inadequate political coordination, it is likely that there would be no system for common security policy. Under these circumstances, when each member of the European Community has its own army, its own security policy, and its own procurement policy for armaments, how can an economic and monetary union control budgetary deficits if a particular member state discovers a matter affecting its security and wishes to spend money on it? The Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank provides that only the European Central Bank will be able to take a national central bank before the European Court of Justice to see if the national central bank is conforming to Maastricht.2
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