Editing Maastricht Treaty (section)

===The ERM crises===
In the UK, the Maastricht rebellion drew on the experience of [[Black Wednesday]]. On 16 September 1992 the [[Government of the United Kingdom|British government]] had been forced to withdraw the [[pound sterling]] from the [[European Exchange Rate Mechanism]] (ERM). This was the centrepiece of the [[European Monetary System]] (EMS), agreed in 1978 as a means of reducing the "barrier" that exchange-rate volatility presented for intra-Community commerce (and for the management of payments under the [[Common Agricultural Policy]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Loureiro |first=Joao |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u-_nCAAAQBAJ |title=Monetary Policy in the European Monetary System: A Critical Appraisal |date=2012-12-06 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-642-80100-6 |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref> 

Britain had signed up to the ERM in 1990 as a token of the government's commitment to control inflation (then running at three times the rate of Germany).<ref>[https://libcom.org/library/britain-european-exchange-rate-mechanism 1990–1992: Britain and the politics of the European exchange rate mechanism]. Libcom (13 January 2006). Retrieved 27 September 2020.</ref> From the beginning of 1990, high German interest rates, set by the [[Bundesbank]] to counteract inflationary impact of the expenditure on [[German reunification]], caused significant stress across the whole of the ERM. By the time of their own ratifications debates, France and Denmark also found themselves under pressure in foreign exchange markets, their currencies trading close to the bottom of their ERM bands.<ref>Aykens, Peter. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20097797?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Conflicting Authorities: States, Currency Markets and the ERM Crisis of 1992–93]. ''Review of International Studies'', Vol. 28, No. 2 (Apr. 2002), pp. 359–380. Retrieved 21 October 2019.</ref> In Britain, the government of [[John Major]] failed in a costly attempt to keep the pound above its mandated [[exchange rate]] limit. While a political humiliation, [[Pound sterling|sterling]]'s exit from the ERM was followed in the UK by economic recovery and a significant fall in employment.<ref>{{cite news |last=Davis |first=Evan |author-link=Evan Davis |date=15 September 2002 |title=Lessons learned on 'Black Wednesday' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2259648.stm |access-date=31 May 2023 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref>