History

Before the creation of the European Community the former name of the European Union the countries of Europe had hardly anything to do with one another. Long ago the countries were separated by natural barriers. Later these would often become political frontiers, which is still the case nowadays.

Robert Schumann was born at the french german border. He had suffered the consequences of two dreadful wars. Schuman thought: frontiers are no good, especially not if they contribute to making war. He thought a lot on this problem.

The ninth of May 1950 he did a proposal for a cooperating community in Western Europe. At the time six countries supported the proposal. They were The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy. This community was called the European community of Coal and Steel. The name was changed in 1957. This time the name European Economic Community. Later on people talked about the European Community because it was no longer about economic matters only.. In 1973 three other countries decided to joint the European Community: These were: Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland. In 1981 Greece also entered the Community and in 1986 Spain and Portugal followed the Greece example. Finally Finland Sweden and Austria joined the Union. The name has changed again. Now it is called the European Union or EU. All countries who are members of the European Union are called member states. It is clear that there is ever growing union in Europe. There are also a lot of eastern european countries who want to entre the EU so they can join the euro too.

Why a united Europe?

In Europe there are a certain amount of problems that have to be solved. For instance the pollution of the river Rhine, unemployment, energy supply, the problems in Ireland and Italy and so on. It is necessary that daily people are working on solving these problems. In order to work at these problems the countries of the EU have appointed a board. This board is called the European Commission. Members of the European Commission are from different countries of the EU. Their tasks also include:

• Support for the farmers in Europe who have met with drought or other catastrophes.
• Immigrant workers should be treated the same in all EU countries.
• Creation of industry in countries with many unemployed people such as the South of Italy and Scotland.
• The setting of prices for agricultural and horticultural products

The points mentioned above points are of course advantages for the participating countries. The things that the European Commission does are controlled by the European parliament. What might stop the introduction of the euro?