European Union

Origins

The idea of European integration is more than a halfcentury old. After World War II, it was established in France in 1950 when the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman encouraged economic integration, in the form of the European Coal and Steel Community. After initial successful cooperation, its six original founding countries (France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) decided to tighten their economic links by removing trade barriers between them and forming a “common market.” For this purpose, the Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957 by the governments of the six member nations, created the European Economic Community (EC) and laid the foundation for further expansions of the EC.

The Treaty of the European Union, also known as the Treaty of Maastricht, signed on February 7, 1992, created the EU. This treaty comprises two major sets of provisions. The first set defined the steps for the establishment of an economic and monetary union. The second set described the steps toward the achievement of a political union, including common foreign and defense polices.

Member States

The EC expanded in 1973, when Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom joined it. Greece followed in 1981, Portugal and Spain in 1986, and Austria, Finland, and Sweden in 1995. Ten other, mostly Eastern European, countries gained access in 2004. In May 2005, the EU consisted of the following 25 member states: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Turkey were candidate countries in May 2005.

Institutions of the European Union

The EU consists of three core institutions. The European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Parliament (EP) form the institutional triangle that creates Europe-wide policies and laws. These institutions were originally established with the launch of the EC in 1957. These institutions are involved in decisions of joint interest at the European level. Three pillars circumscribe the institutions' activities. Fields of interest concerning member states' delegation of decision making to the EU institutions can be found in Pillar One of the EU. Pillar One includes institutional and legislative procedures, agricultural policy, the internal market, the environment, citizens' rights, economic and monetary union, and regional policy. Activities in areas that are not subject to the EU institutions are organized through intergovernmental cooperation. These areas are covered in Pillar Two, which contains provisions on a common foreign and security policy, and Pillar Three, which provides for cooperation on justice and member states' domestic policies. Pillars Two and Three play quite important roles as the EU operates under the principle of subsidiarity—that is, the intention to accomplish as much as possible at the level of the member states.

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