European Union

I

Introduction

European Union (EU), organization of European countries dedicated to increasing economic integration and strengthening cooperation among its members. The European Union headquarters is located in Brussels, Belgium. As of 2007 there were 27 countries in the EU.

The European Union was formally established on November 1, 1993. It is the most recent in a series of cooperative organizations in Europe that originated with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) of 1951, which became the European Community (EC) in 1967. The original members of the EC were Belgium, France, West Germany (now part of the united Germany), Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands. Subsequently these nations were joined by Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Spain. In 1991 the governments of the 12 member states signed the Treaty on European Union (commonly called the Maastricht Treaty), which was then ratified by the national legislatures of all the member countries.

The Maastricht Treaty transformed the EC into the EU. In 1995 Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU. In May 2004, 10 more countries were added, bringing the total number of EU member countries to 25. The 10 new members were Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Two more countries in eastern Europe—Romania and Bulgaria—joined the EU on January 1, 2007.

The EU has a number of objectives. Its principal goal is to promote and expand cooperation among member states in economics and trade, social issues, foreign policy, security and defense, and judicial matters. Under the Maastricht Treaty, European citizenship was granted to citizens of each member state. Border controls were relaxed. Customs and immigration agreements were modified to allow European citizens greater freedom to live, work, and study in any of the member states.

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Another major goal of the EU has been to implement Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which introduced a single currency, the euro, for EU members. In January 2002 the euro replaced the national currencies of 12 EU member nations. Fourteen EU members do not currently participate in the single currency. They are Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, nine of the ten nations that joined the EU in 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania. Slovenia adopted the euro in January 2007, having become the first of the members added in 2004 to meet the necessary economic requirements.

II

History of the European Union

The dream of a united Europe is almost as old as Europe itself. The early 9th-century empire of Charlemagne covered much of western Europe. In the early 1800s the French empire of Napoleon I encompassed most of the European continent. During World War II (1939-1945), German leader Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in uniting Europe under Nazi domination (see National Socialism). All these efforts failed because they relied on forcibly subjugating other nations rather than fostering cooperation among them.

Attempts to create cooperative organizations fared little better until after World War II. Until then, nations strongly opposed all attempts to infringe on their powers and were unwilling to yield control over their policies. Early collaborative ventures were international or intergovernmental organizations that depended on the voluntary cooperation of their members; consequently, they had no direct powers of coercion to enforce their laws or regulations. Supranational organizations, on the other hand, require members to surrender at least a portion of their control over policy areas and can compel compliance with their mandates. After World War II, proposals for some kind of supranational organization in Europe became increasingly frequent.

A

Early Cooperation

Postwar aspirations for a European supranational organization had both political and economic motives. The political motive was based on the conviction that only a supranational organization could eliminate the threat of war between European countries. Some supporters of European political unity, such as the French statesman Jean Monnet, further believed that if the nations of Europe were to resume a dominant role in world affairs, they had to speak with one voice and command resources comparable to those of the United States.

The economic motive rested on the belief that larger markets would promote competition and thus lead to greater productivity and higher standards of living. Economic and political viewpoints merged in the assumptions that economic strength was the basis of political and military power, and that a fully integrated European economy would reduce conflict among European nations. Because countries were hesitant to surrender any control over national affairs, most of the practical proposals for supranational organizations assumed that economic integration would precede political unification.

B

Benelux Customs Union

The Benelux Customs Union (now the Benelux Economic Union) is an early example of a supranational economic organization. This union provided for a free-trade area composed of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and for a common tariff imposed on goods from outside the union. Formed in 1948, the union grew from the recognition that the economies of the separate states were individually too small to be competitive in the global market. Belgium and Luxembourg had, in fact, joined in an economic union as early as 1921, and the governments of Belgium and Netherlands had agreed in principle on a customs union during World War II. These three countries have been among the warmest advocates of European cooperation, and they have continued to work for closer economic integration of their own countries independently of broader European developments.

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