For example, the Delors Report of 1989 stressed that “uncoordinated and divergent national budgetary policies would undermine monetary stability and generate imbalances in the real and financial sectors of the Community.”2 To address these concerns the Maastricht Treaty introduced a number of safeguards: the nobail-out clause, the excessive deficit procedure and the monetary-financing prohibition.
Yet, for well-known political reasons, the Maastricht Treaty stopped short of assigning responsibility for fiscal and economic policies to the central level. Member States retained responsibility for these policy fields. At the same time, the Treaty called on governments to treat such policies as a matter of common concern.