The European Union

Recently I attended a lecture on business in Britain and the “new” Europe. There were many points of interest, but one in particular that I decided to research more in depth. The European Union (EU) is a very important part of the culture and politics of the 20th century, so I’ll go over a bit of its history and what it’s achieving in present day Europe.

The European Union was in theory started long before its founding in 1993 as a reaction to the second World War. The idea was to curtail the extreme forms of nationalism that had traumatized the continent. After several attempts over the years were made to join countries together economically, it wasn’t until after the Iron Curtain fell in 1990 that criteria was established for candidacy into the Union and the ball got rolling. Once the Maastricht Treaty was put into play in Nov. 1993, the European Union was established with 12 nations of the European Community.
By 2002, the Euro had replaced the national currencies of 12 member nations. The EU’s growth continued and in 2004 it saw it’s largest growth when 10 nations joined the Union bringing the final total today to 27 member countries.

The European Union’s goal is to give greater freedom to its citizens through their work, lifestyle, study, and travel in member states. According to Wikipedia, the European Union has effictively “established a single economic market across the territory of all its members.” This is important because it means that trade occurs more often and therefore stimulates the economy in all regions. Wikipedia also sites that the EU “generated an estimated nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of US$16.83 trillion in 2007, amounting to 31% of the world’s total economic output, which makes it the largest economy in the world by nominal GDP…”. That’s pretty darn impressive.

In regards to how the EU operates, I found out that it’s developed a single market through certain laws- which apply to all the member states. These laws guarantee certain rights to the EU’s members. Most importantly, the EU insures the freedom of movement of “people, goods, services and capital.” It helps to keep up a standard trade policy, as well as a regional development policy. Because of its vast importance in Europe, its role in foreign policy is quite substantial. It has members in the United Nations, at G8 summits, and in the World Trade Organization.

Overall, the European Union has made trade and travel much easier to the people of Europe. Because density is such an issue in Europe (450 million compared to America’s 300 million) having these trade barriers broken down has benefited the economy and helped frustrated travelers.