i 1 2 CONTENT 1.THE EU FLAG ................................................................................ 4 2. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT EUROPE .................................. 5 3. THE EUROPEAN UNION ............................................................... 6 3.1. History and Treaties .............................................................. 6 3.2. How many countries are there in Europe? .......................... 10 3.3. The official languages in the EU .......................................... 12 4. HOW DOES THE EU WORK? ...................................................... 13 4.1. Institutions .......................................................................... 13 4.2. Economic and monetary union ........................................... 17 5. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A EU CITIZEN? .............................. 19 6. EURODESK ................................................................................. 20 ANNEX ........................................................................................... 21 3 1. THE EU FLAG The European flag symbolises both the European Union and, more broadly, the identity and unity of Europe. It features a circle of 12 gold stars on a blue background. They stand for the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the people of Europe. The number of stars has nothing to do with the number of member countries, though the circle is a symbol of unity. History of the European flag The history of the flag goes back to 1955. The Council of Europe - which defends human rights and promotes European culture – chose the present design for its own use. In the years that followed, it encouraged the emerging European institutions to adopt the same flag. In 1983, the European Parliament decided that the Communities’ flag should be that used by the Council of Europe. In 1985, it was adopted by all EU leaders as the official emblem of the European Communities, later to become the European Union. In addition, all European institutions now have their own emblems. Commemorative euro coin: 30 years of the EU flag To mark the 30th anniversary of the decision by EU leaders to adopt the flag as an EU emblem, the 19-euro area countries are issuing a special commemorative coin. Following an online competition held in 2015 by the European Commission, citizens and residents of the euro area selected the design created by Georgios Stamatopoulos, an engraver at the Bank of Greece. It comprises 12 stars that morph into human figures embracing the birth of a new Europe. 4 2. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT EUROPE Europe is one of the smallest continents on the Earth. It is attached to Asia on one side and surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the North Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean Sea. It also has big mountain rages: the Balkan Mountains, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Carpathian Mountains, the Dinaric Alps and the Ural Mountains, combined with vast plains, such as the European plain, the Caspian depression and the Russian plain. Along with this geography, this continent has a lot of history, although it is not clear when the first inhabitants of Europe arrived. It is certain that during the prehistoric times, in 35000 BC, modern Homo sapiens were living in Europe. From that moment, many historical events have happened: the conquest of Roman Empire, its fall, the conquests of barbarians from the north, the crusades, the rise of the empires, the colonial times, the fall of big empires in Europe, the attempt of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler of transforming all Europe in a big powerful empire and their defeat (to say a few). After World War II -and the defeat of the Nazis-, some important politicians of the time saw that a united Europe would be Click on the image to see more powerful and protected from other war attempts, The History of Europe: Every Year than each country on its own. Just to mention some of them, they were Robert Schuman Ursula Hirschmann, Alcide de Gasperi, Éliane Vogel-Polsky, Jean Monnet and Simone Veil. Click on them to discover more. 5 3. THE EUROPEAN UNION 3.1. History and Treaties After the World War II, a military alliance between the US, Canada, Turkey and other 26 European countries was born, to respond to post War Soviet attack. It is called NATO (Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization) and its main purpose is the collective defence, in order to guarantee the freedom and security of all the members by political and military means. At the end of the War, Europe had been divided in two parts: Eastern Europe, under the political influence of Soviet Union, and Western Europe, under the political influence of US. That initially non-physical boundary was named “Iron Curtain” and lasted until the end of the called “Cold War” in 1991. In 1961 the Berlin Wall was built by the government of Eastern Germany to divide the countries of the two main superpowers. During 1950, the countries began to unite and form the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), being only 6 countries in the beginning: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The main Treaties The first Treaty they signed was in 1952 and lasted for a period of 50 years: The Treaty of Paris. It established the countries that formed the Union, the setup of a High Authority who would “supervise the market, monitor compliance with competition rules; and ensure price transparency.” It is the basis of all the treaties that have been signed within the EU. 6 They began to unite their economies and in 1957, the European Economic Community (ECC) was created through the Treaty of Rome. During that year, another important Treaty was signed: The Treaty of Euratom. It was made to regulate nuclear energy, which was becoming more and more important for the progress of the EU. That Treaty was meant to ensure that the energy would be investigated safely and used for the public in general for the advance of society, not for military use. In 1967 the Merger Treaty entered into force and established from that moment on there would be “a single Council and single Commission (…), a single administrative budget for the EC (…), a single administration for the EC (…)” and designed Brussels as the place for the EC. The Treaty of Luxembourg (1971) and the Treaty of Brussels (1977) were destined to regulate the financial resources that the EC had. The next countries that entered the EU were Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1973. At the end of the national dictatorships, Greece, Portugal and Spain could apply to enter the EU. Greece entered the EU in 1981 and Portugal and Spain in 1986, the same year that the Single European Act is signed. This Treaty, thought initially to last six years, created a “Single market” and allowed free trade of people and goods within the EU borders. The destruction of the curtain was a reality in 1989-1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the fall, both sides of the Wall had to take a year to reunite and create a common system, which was capitalism, and the unification resulted in the fall of many industries of the eastern part. The now unified Germany remained within the EU and changed to euro in 1999. In 1993 this Treaty became solid and completed with the free trade of “goods, services, people and money”. 7 Two Treaties were signed during the 1990s: “The Maastricht Treaty on the European Union” (1993) and the “Treaty of Amsterdam” (1999). The first Treaty established that “the Union is founded on the European Communities (…), the Common Foreign and Security Policy (…) and Justice and Home Affairs.” The second Treaty updated the first one, establishing that it was to “promote economic and social progress (…); assert the EU’s identity on the international stage; strengthen the rights and interests of EU nationals; maintain and develop the EU as an area of freedom, security and justice; maintain and develop the corpus of EU law.” In 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU and the Schengen agreements were signed, allowing free mobility (without signing the passport) around the EU countries. The Schengen Area is, as said by the European Union, “an area without internal borders, an area within which citizens, many non-EU, businesspeople and tourists can freely circulate without being subjected to border checks”. As it is a border-free area, the security towards their external border is reinforced to protect the travellers of the area. The countries in the area are listed by the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Some of these countries belong to the European Union and some of them have associations so they can travel border-free as well. Check out this video if you want to know how the Schengen Area was created! In 2001, the Treaty of Nice was signed. It was destined to reform the institutions to match the necessities that the larger EC needed. In 2004 ten countries entered the EU: Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, together with the Isles of Cyprus and Malta. In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania also were accepted. In 2009 the Treaty of Lisbon was approved by all the members of the EU. 8 It established that the President of the Commission must be designated by the Parliament, in the context of the European Parliament Elections. It also established that the Parliament is not over European law, and that it has the power over the budget. With the global crisis in 2009, the EU created the “Banking Union”, to save the countries that were facing severe problems. In 2013 Croatia entered the EU as the 28th country. Currently, the problems that the EU must face include climate change, the several terrorist attacks in different countries of the EU, the conquest (by guns) of Crimea by Russia, and the refugees.