The 1993 Maastricht Treaty has had far greater ramifications than on economic policies alone. The discipline of European studies has developed in order to understand the many effects of these changes and how to work with them through such subjects as history, culture, politics, business, and economics.

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. The country consists of 16 states, and its capital and largest city is Berlin.