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    European Union1

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    The European Union is an economic and political union consisting of 27 member states located primarily in Europe. It was established in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty and evolved from earlier European communities formed in the 1950s. Key EU institutions that operate through a hybrid supranational and intergovernmental system include the European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Council, Court of Justice, and European Central Bank. The EU covers an area of over 4 million square kilometers and has 23 official languages.

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    European Union1

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    The European Union is an economic and political union consisting of 27 member states located primarily in Europe. It was established in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty and evolved from earlier European communities formed in the 1950s. Key EU institutions that operate through a hybrid supranational and intergovernmental system include the European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Council, Court of Justice, and European Central Bank. The EU covers an area of over 4 million square kilometers and has 23 official languages.

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    The European Union is an economic and political union consisting of 27 member states located primarily in Europe. It was established in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty and evolved from earlier European communities formed in the 1950s. Key EU institutions that operate through a hybrid supranational and intergovernmental system include the European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Council, Court of Justice, and European Central Bank. The EU covers an area of over 4 million square kilometers and has 23 official languages.

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    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    14 views2 pages

    European Union1

    Uploaded by

    jpsvsreeram
    The European Union is an economic and political union consisting of 27 member states located primarily in Europe. It was established in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty and evolved from earlier European communities formed in the 1950s. Key EU institutions that operate through a hybrid supranational and intergovernmental system include the European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Council, Court of Justice, and European Central Bank. The EU covers an area of over 4 million square kilometers and has 23 official languages.

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    European Union

    1. The European Union (EU) is an economic and political union of 27 independent member
    states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), formed by six countries in 1958. 2. 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. 3. The European Union is composed of 27 sovereign Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The Union's membership has grown from the original six founding statesBelgium, France, (then-West) Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlandsto the present day 27 by successive enlargements as countries acceded to the treaties and by doing so, pooled their sovereignty in exchange for representation in the institutions. 4. The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions negotiated by the member states. 5. 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 is elected every 5 years by EU citizens. 6. A monetary union, the euro zone, was established in 1999 and is currently composed of 17 member states. 7. Permanent diplomatic missions have been established around the world and the EU is represented at the United Nations, the WTO, the G8 and the G-20. 8. The EU's member states cover an area of 4,423,147 square kilometers (1,707,787 sq mi).The EU is larger in area than all but six countries, and its highest peak is Mont Blanc in the Graian Alps, 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft) above sea level.The lowest point in the EU is Zuidplaspolder in the Netherlands, at 7 m (23 ft) below sea level. The landscape, climate, and economy of the EU are influenced by its coastline, which is 65,993 kilometers (41,006 mi) long. The EU has the world's second-longest coastline, after Canada. The combined member states share land borders with 19 non-member states for a total of 12,441 kilometers (7,730 mi), the fifthlongest border in the world. 9. The European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France 10. To join the EU a country must meet the Copenhagen criteria, defined at the 1993 Copenhagen European Council. These require a stable democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy capable of competition within the EU; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law. 11. No member state has ever left the Union, although Greenland (an autonomous province of Denmark) withdrew in 1985.The Lisbon Treaty now provides a clause dealing with how a member leaves the EU. 12. The European Union was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force on 1 November 1993,and in 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the newly established EU. In 2002, euro notes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 of the member states. Since then, the euro zone has increased to encompass 17 countries. In 2004, the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the Union. 13. Among the many languages and dialects used in the EU, it has 23 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, and Swedish. 14. Most official languages of the EU belong to the Indo-European language family, except Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian, which belong to the Uralic language family, and Maltese, which is an Afro-asiatic language. Most EU official languages are written in the Latin alphabet except Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic, and Greek, written in the Greek alphabet. 15. Besides the 23 official languages, there are about 150 regional and minority languages, spoken by up to 50 million people.

    16. The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is
    responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union. The Berlaymont is an office building in Brussels, Belgium that houses the headquarters of the European Commission 17. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the institution of the European Union (EU) which encompasses the whole judiciary. Seated in Luxembourg, it has three sub-courts; the European Court of Justice, the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal. The institution was originally established in 1952 as the Court of Justice of the European Coal and Steel Communities 18. The European Central Bank (ECB) is the institution of the European Union (EU) that administers the monetary policy of the 17 EU Euro zone member states. It is thus one of the world's most important central banks. The bank was established by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1998, and is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. 19. The European Parliament (abbreviated as Europarl or the EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council) and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world.The Parliament is composed of 736 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), who serve the second largest democratic electorate in the world (after India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009).

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