What is the EU?

The European Union is a unique economic and political partnership between 27 European countries.

The EU was created in the aftermath of the second world war.  The initial steps were to foster economic cooperation: countries that trade with one another are economically interdependent and will thus avoid conflict.  It traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), formed by six countries in 1958.  In the intervening years the EU has grown in size by the accession of new member states.

The Maastricht Treaty established the European Union under its current name in 1993.  The last amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009.

The EU has delivered half a century of peace, stability, and prosperity, helped raise living standards, launched a single European currency, and is progressively building a single Europe-wide market in which people, goods, services, and capital move among Member States as freely as within one country.

Since then, the union has developed into a huge single market with the euro as its common currency. What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organisation spanning many areas of policy or ‘competence’.

The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions negotiated by the member states.  Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central Bank.

• The European Parliament represents the people of Europe;
• The Council of the European Union represents national governments;
• The European Commission represents the common EU interest.

What has the EU achieved?

Frontier-free travel and trade, the euro (the single European currency), safer food, better living standards in poorer regions, joint action on crime and terror, cheaper phone calls, millions of opportunities to study abroad and much more besides.  It actively promotes human rights and democracy and has the most ambitious emission reduction targets for fighting climate change in the world.

It has also become much easier to live and work in another EU country.  Within the Schengen Area (which includes EU and non-EU states) passport controls have been abolished.

The EU is recognisable by several symbols, the most well-known being the circle of yellow stars on a blue background.

The European flag

The 12 stars in a circle symbolise the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe.