Mediaboss Marketing

The European Union (EU) is a supranational and intergovernmental union of twenty-seven states in a category of its own. It was established in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (The Maastricht Treaty), and is the de facto successor to the six-member European Economic Community founded in 1957. Since then new accessions have raised its number of member states, and competences have expanded.

The EU is one of the largest economic and political entities in the world, with 494 million people and a combined nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of 11.6 (US$14.5) trillion in 2006.[1] The Union is a single market with a common trade policy,[2] a Common Agricultural/Fisheries Policy, and a Regional policy to assist underdeveloped regions.[3] It introduced a single currency, the euro, adopted by 13 member states. The EU initiated a limited Common Foreign and Security Policy, and a limited Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.

Important EU institutions and bodies include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. Citizens of EU member states are also EU citizens: they directly elect the European Parliament, once every five years. They can live, travel, work, and invest in other member states (with some restrictions on new member states). Passport control and customs checks at most internal borders were abolished by the Schengen Agreement

The EU has evolved from a Western European trade body into the supranational and intergovernmental body that it is today. After the Second World War, an impetus grew in Western Europe for institutional forms of cooperation (through social, political and economic integration) between states, driven by the determination to rebuild Europe and eliminate the possibility of another war between Germany and France. Eastern Europe, on the other hand, was largely within the Soviet sphere of influence, and only in the 1990s did the EU see central and Eastern European states as potential members.

In 1946 Winston Churchill called for a "United States of Europe" (though without the inclusion of the UK).[5] On 9 May 1950 the French foreign minister Robert Schuman presented Jean Monnet's proposal for the joint management of France's and West Germany's coal and steel industries. The proposal, known as the "Schuman Declaration", envisaged the scheme as "the first concrete step towards a European federation".[6] It is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union, and led to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community by West Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries. This was accomplished by the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1951.[7]

The founding nations signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957The first full customs union - the European Economic Community - was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and implemented on 1st January 1958. This later changed to the European Community, which is now the "first pillar" of the European Union created by the Maastricht treaty.

On 29 October 2004, EU member state heads of government and state signed the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This was later ratified by 17 member states. However, in most cases ratification was based on parliamentary action, rather than popular vote, and the process faltered on 29 May 2005 when French voters rejected the constitution 55% to 45%. The French rejection was followed three days later by a Dutch one, in which 62% of voters rejected the constitution as well.

[edit] Geography

22 member countries are influenced by extensive coastlines and oceanic climate, (Mediterranean, Greece)Main articles: Geography of the European Union and Geography of Europe The territory of the European Union is formed by the territory of its twenty-seven member states, and expands with the accession of new members. It covers an area of 4,422,773 square kilometres (1,707,642 sq mi).[8] Extending northeast to Finland, northwest to Ireland, southeast to Cyprus and southwest to Portugal, it represents the seventh largest territory in the world by area. It is estimated that the coastline of the European Union is over 150,000 km long.

The EU is not coterminous with Europe: significant parts of the continent (e.g. Switzerland, Norway, European Russia) are outside of the EU. The member states of the EU have land borders with 21 other nations. Several overseas territories and dependencies of various member states are also formally part of the EU (e.g. the Azores, Madeira, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe or the Canary Islands) while in other cases territories associated with member states are not part of the EU (e.g. Greenland, the Faroe Islands, most territories associated to the United Kingdom, Aruba, the Netherlands Antilles or New Caledonia).

Including overseas territories of member states, the EU includes most types of climate from Arctic to tropical. Meteorological averages for the EU as a whole are therefore not meaningful. The majority of the population live in areas with a Mediterranean climate (southern Europe), a temperate maritime climate (Western Europe), or a warm summer continental or hemiboreal climate (in eastern member states).

Languages

The Latin alphabet is used in all but three of the twenty-seven member states, the exceptions being Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria.Main article: Languages of the European Union The European Union has 23 official and working languages:[31] Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. German is the most widely spoken mother tongue followed by English, French, and Italian. English is by far the most spoken foreign language. German and French follow next. 56% of EU citizens are able to hold a conversation in one language apart from their mother tongue.[32] All EU official languages belong to the Indo-European language family, except Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian, which belong to the Finno-Ugric language family, and except Maltese, which is a Semitic language. All EU official languages are written in the Latin alphabet, except Bulgarian, written in Cyrillic, and Greek, written in Greek alphabet.[33]

The EU provides interpretation, translation and publication services in its official languages, but only legislation and important documents are produced in all 23 official languages; other documents are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions make their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in English, French and German, and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset.[34] In the EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, but EU institutions, based on the "principle of subsidiarity", promote the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the member states,[35][36] through a number of programmes, most prominently Lifelong learning Programme 2007-2013.

Translation booths in the EU Parliament are on the front-side walls.There are about 150 regional and minority languages, spoken by up to 50 million people.[33] Catalan, Galician, and Basque, though not official languages, can be used in the communication of the citizens with the Council of the European Union, the Commission, the Economic and Social Committee, the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman, as well as in the workings of the Committee of the Regions.[37] Though regional and minorities languages can benefit from EU programmes, protection of linguistic rights is a matter for the member states.

A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish, Maghreb Arabic, Russian, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Ukrainian, and Balkan languages are spoken in many parts of the EU. Many older immigrant communities are bilingual in the local language and in that of their community. Migrant languages are not given formal status or recognition in the EU or in the EU countries and they are not covered by EU language teaching programmes.[33]

[edit] Religion

Predominant religious heritage in European countries Protestantism

Roman Catholicism

Orthodox ChristianityFurther information: Religion in Europe The EU is an officially secular institution, hence neither God, nor Christianity was mentioned in its proposed constitution, in spite of pressure from the churches. Most of the Member States are secular states, although a small minority are not (the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Finland) and others have references to Christianity in their own constitutions while officially remaining secular (e.g. the Irish Republic). Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised the Pope that she will use her influence during Germany's EU presidency to try to include a reference to Christianity and God in a revived constitution. However, this has provoked opposition, not the least in the German press.[38]

A significant religious diversity exists among the populations of EU member states, reflecting their diverse history and culture. Nowadays, religion is on the decline in Europe, to an effect that not all populations have religious majorities. In the Czech Republic and Estonia, for example, a majority has no religious affiliation. The most common belief in the EU is Christianity, which can be roughly divided into Roman Catholicism, a wide range of Protestant churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. The Christian churches have historically wielded much power in Europe. As a reaction during the enlightenment, secularism was developed as a political system, allowing for a rise in atheism and agnosticism.

Judaism has had a long history in Europethere were Jewish communities in parts of Europe prior to the rise of the Roman Empire. As of 2002, the European Union had an estimated Jewish population of something over a million, including about 519,000 in France and about 273,500 in the United Kingdom. This compares with about 5 million Jews in Israel.[39] In view of the, history of persecution of Jews in Europe; antisemitism remains a matter of concern within the EU.[40] For instance, a British parliamentary enquiry into antisemitism found that, though the prevailing opinion within and outside the Jewish community had, until recently, been that antisemitism existed only on the margins of society, there was evidence that this may have changed since 2000.[41]

The recent influx of immigrants to the EU nations has brought in various religions of their native homelands, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Bah' Faith and Sikhism.

[edit] Education and science

Lund University main building, built in 1882, SwedenMain article: Education in the European Union The European Commission initiated the ERASMUS programme for higher education. It was established in 1987 and forms a major part of the EU Socrates II programme. Its name is an abbreviation of "European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students" and has been styled after the life of Desiderius Erasmus. It was incorporated into the Socrates programme when that programme was established in 1995. The Socrates programme ended in 1999 and was replaced with the Socrates II programme in 2000. Other educational programmes include Leonardo (secondary schools), Grundtvig (adult learning) and Arion (teaching decision-makers).

The stated aim of ERASMUS is to encourage and support academic mobility of higher education students and teachers within the European Union, the European Economic Area countries of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as well as the candidate country Turkey. 2,199 higher education institutions are participating in ERASMUS across the 31 countries involved in the Socrates programme. 1.4 million students have already taken part.[42]

The Ariane 5 is an expendable launch systemMember states of the EU are, along with other European nations and several international NGOs, signatories to the Bologna process. This is an attempt to create a European higher education area, by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. It is named after the place it was proposed, the University of Bologna with the signing, in 1999, of the Bologna declaration by ministers of education from 29 European countries in the Italian city of Bologna. Governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003) and Bergen (2005); the next meeting will take place in London in Spring 2007.

The Galileo positioning system (or simply 'Galileo'), is a proposed Global Navigation Satellite System, to be built by the European Union and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA). The current project plan has the system as operational by 2010. Several other nations are joining the project co financing the development such as China, Israel, India, Morocco or South Korea. ESA is a non-EU organisation and its membership includes non-EU countries such as Switzerland and Norway. Both countries are, however, within the EFTA. There are ties between those organisations, with various agreements in place and being worked on, to establish the legal status of ESA with regard to the EU.[43] There are common goals between ESA and the EU, and ESA has an EU liaison office in Brussels.

The EU is also sponsoring a large number of research projects aimed at academics and institutes, organised in frameworks of calls. From 2007 the EU has opened its 7th framework for grant applications.

[edit] Culture

Two cities are the European Capital of Culture in 2007 - Sibiu, RomaniaMain article: Cultural policies of the European Union Supporters of European integration often appeal to a European historical narrative, typically including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the feudalism of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, 19th century Liberalism and (sometimes) negative elements such as the World Wars. This history is assumed to be the source of European values. The status of Christianity as 'European heritage' is controversial, and has consequences for the accession of Turkey to the European Union. The European Convention rejected inclusion of a reference in the proposed European Constitution to Christianity and/or God. The text finally adopted in the Preamble reads:

DRAWING INSPIRATION from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law,... Attitudes and values of the EU population are very diverse, influenced by social class, religion, level of education, and ethnicity, and they are not necessarily either European or national in character. The interests of member states are mainly economic and political in nature.

The cultural capitals are designated for a period of one year (Luxembourg)There is no single culture or lifestyle common to the entire EU population. Some are local, national or regional. There are aspects of popular culture which can be found all over the EU, such as football, but none are limited to the EU (they may be equally influential in non-member states in Europe, and some are global).

Cultural cooperation between member states has become a community competency since its inclusion in 1992 in the Maastricht Treaty. Actions taken in the cultural area by the European Union include the Culture 2000 7-year programme, the European Capital of Culture programme, the European Cultural Month event, the Media Plus programme, experimental actions and the awarding of various grants.

The European Union gave grants to 233 cultural projects in 2004 and launched a webportal dedicated to Europe and Culture, responding to the European Council's expressed desire to see the Commission and the member states "promote the networking of cultural information to enable all citizens to access European cultural content by the most advanced technological means."

[edit] Sport

Football is the most popular sport in EU countries (Camp Nou in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)Main article: Sport policies of the European Union Sports, including spectator sports, are popular in EU countries: the most popular is football. Cycling, tennis, water polo, and field hockey are also widely watched and played in the EU. Other sports are favorites in fewer countries, such as ice hockey, rugby, handball, and motorsports; and several sports are unique to one or a few countries (e.g. cricket in the UK, hurling, Gaelic handball and Gaelic football in Ireland and korfball in the Netherlands and Belgium).

Although it recently launched an anti-doping convention, the European Union plays a minor and mostly indirect role in sport policy. Sports are normally considered to be outside the competences conferred by the member states to the European Union. Sports are also organized nationally, on a European continental level (which is not the same as the level of the European Union), or globally. The European Union does not have specific sports policies. The role of the EU could increase, if (for example) the European Constitution were to be ratified.

Yet other policies of the EU can have an impact on sports, as famously exemplified by the Bosman ruling, which, among other things, prohibited national football leagues from imposing quotas on foreign players from other EU states. This ruling subsequently forced UEFA to modify the rules for all its European members. The Bosman ruling also gave all EU players the right of free transfer after expiration of their contracts.

Hope this fills you in.....

Read more from the original source:
European Union? | Yahoo Answers