Short History of European Union

The History of the formation on the European Union takes us back around 1951, with the formation of European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) between France, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to pool the steel and coal resources of its member-states. This treaty was sign at Paris.

This was a fulfillment of a plan developed by a French economist Jean Monnet, publicized by the French foreign minister Robert Schuman, which was also strongly supported by the United States.

The "Treaty of Pars" entered in force by 1952 and was time limited to 50 years. This coalition was very important because steel had played an important part in arms production in World War II and was a fundamental resource of the western European states.

The goal was a common program of post-war production and consumption of steel and coal that will unite in cooperation and reconciliation between the two country: France and Germany by controlling steel and coal which were fundamental to war industries.

The ECSC was the promoter for the later development of the European Community who became latter the European Union . The 9 May was chosen as The "European day" as a celebration of the creation of the European Union as Schuman presented the proposal on May 9, 1950 known as the "Schuman Declaration" that is considered to be the beginning of the creation of the Union.

Encouraged by the United States, an attempt was made to create a European Defense Community (EDC) and a European Political (EPC) to allow troops to be raised from Germany to face the Soviet threat but these attempts proved overambitious.

The European Union will have an European Commission that was formally the Commission of the European Communities as the executive body and alongside with the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union where the three main institutions governing the Union.

The Enlargement

The Enlargement of the Union stated on 1973, with the wish from Britain to apply for membership and join the community. Britain form in 1960 a similar trade coalition called European Free Trade Association (EFTA ) with the participation of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal. So in 1973 United Kingdom, Denmark Greenland and Ireland join the Union. But after few years Greenland left the Union in 1985.

In the 1980s, Greece submitted its membership application in June 1975 and joined on January 1, 1981. Portugal submitted its application in March 1977 and Spain in July 1977, and on 1 January 1986, Spain and Portugal joined the union together.

In 1993 the European Union established some new internal rules in the Copenhagen criteria that define whether a nation is eligible to join the European Union or not. Latter after the Reunification of Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden also join the European union.

Another wave of enlargement for the European Union was made in 2004 when the European Commission's Strategic Report from 2002 recommended 10 candidate members for inclusion in the EU: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. Was stated that they had a population of almost 75 million and a gross domestic product at about 840 billion US dollars at that time.

This was the largest wave on enlargement of the union with states that were very different as history, economics and political status and few of them just begun building democracies and had not finalized their transition to a market economy. But culturally and linguistically, this enlargement greatly increased the number of languages spoken within the EU, reflecting the increased cultural heterogeneity and level of diversity, so therefore this can be called one of the most ambitious enlargements of the European Union yet.

This was considered a good advance of the democratic level of Europe to a stable road for a unite Europe and the beginning of the effort for uniting the the Eastern Europe and all the states, firmly convinced that the Union can prevent them from falling again into communism or dictatorship.

For 2007, European Union negotiated and sign a treaty in 2005, so at the next wave on integration, two states out if three will enter the European Union : Romania and Bulgaria. The third state R. of Moldova, didn't agree to join at this stage.

The European Union remains firmly convinced that in the future Republic of Moldova, and maybe Ukraine and later Belarus will join the Union, as soon as they will realize that the European Union will play a much greater role in Europe, and will bring economical stability and growth, and also politically and military security to all the members.