European Union

Throughout its history Europe has exerted an influence disproportionate to its size. Its most important ancient civilizations developed in Mediterranean region. Greek civilization reached its zenith between 500 and 300BC, to be succeeded by that of Rome. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the late 4^th century, shortly before the empire’s western section succumbed to Germanic invaders. The eastern section lived on as the Byzantine empire, centered on Constantinople, which eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

During the Middle Ages a politically fragmented Europe underwent varying degrees of invasion and colonization from Moors, Vikings, Magyars, and others. The attempt of the powerful Franks to re-establish the Western Roman empire soon failed, but the year 962 marked the foundation of what later became the Holy Roman Empire. The Roman Catholic Church became the unifying force throughout the continent; but in the wake of the Renaissance, the 16^th century bought about a religious schism (the Reformation) in western Christendom and ushered in an era of national and international politico-religious warfare.

Post-medieval Europe was characterized by the rise of strong individual nation-states such as Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, and eventually Russia. Their influence on the rest of the world was the result of their acquisition of vast empires outside Europe. Imperial expansion continued through the age of European revolutions, of which the French Revolution was the most momentous. In the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries north-western Europe became the first region of the world to undergo in industrialization.

The modern history of Europe is largely that of its constituent nations. In the 20^th century European history has been dominated by World War 1 and World War 2. Since the end of World war 2 the European Community and its successor, the European Union, have brought an altogether more hopeful era to the peoples of Europe. European Union was established in 1993 by 15 European countries. The EU took over all the European Community institutions, such as the European Parliament, but also extended the scope of the EC according to the terms of the Maastricht Treaty. The member countries agreed to add a shared foreign policy and commitment to cooperation on security matters, including justice and policing, to their economic and political links under the EC. These constitute the “three pillars” of the EU, one pillar being the EC, another pillar coordinating foreign and external security policies(designating the Western European Union as the EU’s defense wing), and the third pillar coordinating internal matters and justice (particularly on immigration and political asylum). Proposals concerning the creation of a single European currency were not acceptable to all members and the issue was complicated further by the withdrawal of the UK and Italy from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. There have also been disagreements over social policies and the sovereignty of member nations; the UK, which has opposed any suggestion of federalism, opted out of a common policy on social issues to be adopted by other members.

In 1995 Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU, increasing the total number of members to 15. Other countries have applied for membership and the EU has agreed to cooperate with former members of the Communist bloc. With the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a free-trade area originally comprising a number of non-EC European states, the EU established a frontier-free zone in 1994, known as the European Economic Area (EEA). In 1999 a European currency, the euro, was launched. It is now an official currency of 11 European Union states.

European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market)

An economic organization of European states set up by the Treaties of Rome in March 1957. Its member states agreed to coordinate their economic policies, and to establish common policies for agriculture, transport, the movement of capital and labor, and the erection of common external tariffs, with the ultimate goal of political unification. The EEC provided an extension of the functional cooperation inaugurated by the European Coal and Steel Community (made up of Belgium, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands). It owed much to the campaigning initiative of Jean Monnet and to the detailed planning of Paul-Henri Spaak. Preliminary meetings were held at Messina in 1955, which led to the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and the formal creation of the EEC in January 1958. Cooperation in the EEC was most organized in the area of Agriculture, and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was the largest item in the EC budget. The institutions of the EEC merged with those of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ESCA) in 1967 to from the European Community (EC).