From here to EMU: the role of the Ecu after Maastrich

At the European Summit in Maastricht on 11 December 1991 a decision was made on how to move to a single currency in the Community before the end of the century at the latest. The agreement also provides the details of the three-stage proposal of the Delors Committee on European Monetary Union (EMU). Institutionally, a European Monetary Institute (EMI) will be created at the beginning of Stage Two in 1994, preceding the European Central Bank as the core of the European System of Central Banks which will be created in 1997 at the earliest and by the second half of 1998 at the latest. The Treaty of Maastricht or Union Treaty was signed in early February and must be ratified by the Community's twelve national parliaments, a process that will probably take about a year.