Article 140 [Progress Reports and Abrogation of Derogations]

The establishment of the EMU is one of the main objectives of the Union (Article 3.4 TEU) and includes ‘a single and stable currency’ which is connected with ‘the strengthening and the convergence’ of the national economies (Recital 8 of the TEU Preamble). Convergence as a prerequisite for entry into the third stage of EMU serves the purpose of securing price stability (Article 127.1 TFEU). For this reason, the introduction of EMU with the Treaty of Maastricht also brought along rules on convergene and the transition to the third stage, whose content was kept throughout the Treaty revisions. Article 140 TFEU in its current version is based on different predecessors in the previous Treaties. Paragraphs 1 and 2 in essence take up the contents of Articles 121.1 and 122.2 TEC-Nice, but subparagraphs 2 and 3 of paragraph 2 are new. The third paragraph of Article 140 TFEU goes back to Article 123.5 TEC-Nice.