The prospect of achieving German unification at the same time suggested the question of the even greater political integration of Germany into the  3  BIS Review 35/1999  European Community. It was these two factors, the single-market project and German unification, that formed the political background to the Treaty of Maastricht.
I would like to mention, in particular, the growing indebtedness of the corporate sector and, to a lesser extent, also of the household and government sectors, which means that, for most of the emerging  Page 7 of 10  countries, total debt (public plus private) is now well in excess of the levels that prevailed before the global financial crisis.