Everything you need to know about the EU:
The recent result of the “Brexit” referendum, in which the voters of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, has piqued the interest of many in finding out more about this institution. Here are ten things to know about the EU
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located in Europe. Each of the countries within the EU is independent but they agree to trade under the treaty agreements made between the nations.
The EU operates a single market which allows free movement of goods, capital, services and people between member states. Countries join the union by becoming party to the founding treaties, and in doing so they subject themselves to the obligations of EU membership. Joining the EU thus entails a partial delegation of the member country’s sovereignty to the EU institutions in return for representation within those institutions.
As of January 2015 the population of the EU was estimated at about 508 million people, which if considered as one single country would have placed it third highest after China and India.
In April 2016 the International Monetary Fund estimated the economy of the EU to have generated an annual Gross Domestic Product of around US$17 trillion, which if treated as a single country would have made it the second largest economy in the world, only marginally behind that of the USA.
The forerunner of the EU, known as the European Economic Community (EEC), was established as a customs union in 1957 when Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome. In 1973, the EEC enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum. The European Union was established under its current name in 1993 following the Maastricht Treaty.
To become an EU member, a country must meet the “Copenhagen criteria”, defined at a meeting in Copenhagen in 1993. These require a stable democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law. Abolition of the death penalty is a condition for EU membership.
The creation of a European single currency became an official objective of the EEC from 1969. In 2002, the Euro currency was fully put into place, when euro notes and coins were issued and national currencies began to be phased out in the “eurozone”, which by then consisted of 12 member states. The eurozone (constituted by the EU member states which have adopted the euro) has since grown to 19 countries. Since its launch the euro has become the second reserve currency in the world with a quarter of foreign exchange reserves being in euro.
The EU makes its own laws. The Council of the European Union forms one half of the EU’s legislature. It consists of a government minister from each member state. The European Parliament forms the other half of the EU’s legislature. 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens every five years on the basis of proportional representation. The courts of member states are required to enforce the EU treaties and any laws enacted under them, even if doing so requires them to ignore conflicting member state national law.
In 1986, the European flag began to be used by the EEC. The EU also has an official anthem which comes from Schiller’s Ode to Joy set to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. According to the EU website, the anthem “symbolises not only the European Union but also Europe in a wider sense” because the poem Ode to Joy “expresses the idealistic vision of the human race becoming brothers”.
The UK will become the first member state to leave the EU, if it follows the formal withdrawal processes required to exit. No member state has yet left the EU although Greenland (an autonomous province of Denmark) withdrew in 1985 following a fishing rights dispute.