(WORLD HISTORY)"EUROPEAN COMMUNITY" & "CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITY" & EUROPEAN UNION

 "EUROPEAN COMMUNITY" & "CONSOLIDATION AND  EXPANSION OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITY"&"EUROPEAN UNION"

• After World War II, moves towards European integration were seen by many as an escape from the extreme forms of nationalism that had devastated the continent. The 1948 Hague Congress was a pivotal moment in European federal history, as it led to the creation of the European Movement International and also of the College of Europe, a place where Europe's future leaders would live and study together. 
• 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was declared to be "a first step in the federation of Europe", starting with the aim of eliminating the possibility of further wars between its member states by means of pooling the national heavy industries.

European Communities
Pillar of the European Union
The three pillars which constituted the European Union
1993–2009 → EU
Component communities
European Coal and Steel Community	1952–2002
European Economic Community	1958–2009
European Atomic Energy Community	1958–

The European Communities (or European Community) were three international organisations:(1)European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) (2)European Economic Community (EEC)(3)European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom).
• In 1993 the Communities were incorporated into the European Union, becoming its first pillar. The European Coal and Steel Community ceased to exist in 2002 . In 2002, the Treaty of Paris which established the European Coal and Steel Community (one of the three communities which comprised the European Communities) expired, having reached its 50-year limit (as the first treaty, it was the only one with a limit). Its work continued as part of the EEC area of the Community's remit.
• The European Economic Community,EEC (renamed as the European Community by the Maastrict Treaty) was dissolved into the European Union by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009; with the Union becoming the legal successor to the Community. 
• Euratom remained a distinct entity outside of the European Union, however is governed by the its institutions.

Three communities, further evolution and expansion:

• The ECSC was created first with proposal in the Schuman Declaration(1950).Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands(total 6) came together to sign the Treaty of Paris in 1951 which established the Community.
• The three Communities shared the same membership, the six states that signed the Treaty of Paris and subsequent treaties were known as the "Inner Six" (the "outer seven" were those countries who formed the European Free Trade Association)
• The ECSC's aim was to combine the coal and steel industries of its members to create a single market in those resources. It was intended that this would increase prosperity and decrease the risk of these countries going to war through the process of European integration. The EAEC was working on nuclear energy co-operation between the members. 
• The success of this Community led to the desire to create more, but attempts at creating a European Defence Community and a European Political Community failed leading to a return to economic matters. 
• In 1957, the EAEC and EEC were created by the Treaties of Rome. 
• The EEC was to create a customs union and general economic co-operation. It later led to the creation of a European single market.
• The EEC became the European Community pillar of the EU, with the ECSC and EAEC continuing in a similar subordinate position, existing separately in a legal sense but governed by the institutions of the EU.
• The ECSC's treaty had a 50-year limit and thus expired in 2002, all its activities are now absorbed into the European Community.
• The EAEC had no such limit and thus continues to exist. Due to the sensitive nature of nuclear power with the European electorate, the treaty has gone without amendment since its signing and was not even to be changed with the European Constitution intended to repeal all other treaties.
• As the EAEC has a low profile, and the profile of the European Community is dwarfed by that of the EU, the term "European Communities" sees little usage.
• Throughout the 1960s, tensions began to show with France seeking to limit supranational power. However, in 1965, an agreement was reached and hence in 1967, the Merger Treaty was signed in Brussels. It created a single set of institutions for the three communities, which were collectively referred to as the European Communities (EC), although the communities themselves remained separate in legal terms.The Commission and Council of the EEC were to take over the responsibilities of its counterparts in the other organisations.
• In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark (including Greenland, which later left the Community in 1985, following a dispute over fishing rights), Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum. 
• In 1979, the first direct, democratic elections to the European Parliament were held.
• Greece joined in 1981; Portugal and Spain in 1986. 
• In 1985, the Schengen Agreement led the way toward the creation of open borders without passport controls between most member states and some non-member states.
• In 1986, the European flag began to be used by the Community and the Single European Act was signed.
• In 1990, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the former East Germany became part of the Community as part of a reunited Germany.
• With further enlargement planned for former communist states, Cyprus, and Malta, the Copenhagen criteria for candidate members to join the European Union were agreed upon in June 1993. 

• Copenhagen criteria :a stable democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law. Evaluation of a country's fulfilment of the criteria is the responsibility of the European Council.

• Following the creation of the EU in November 1993, it has enlarged to include a further sixteen countries. In 1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU. In 2004, the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the Union.
• Countries accede to the union by becoming party to the founding treaties, thereby subjecting themselves to the privileges and obligations of EU membership. This entails a partial delegation of sovereignty to the institutions in return for representation within those institutions, a practice often referred to as "pooling of sovereignty"

European Union(EU):

• The Maastricht Treaty built upon the Single European Act and Declaration on European Union in the creation of the European Union and introduced the European Citizenship. The treaty was signed on 7 February 1992 and came into force on 1 November 1993. 
• The Union superseded and absorbed the European Communities as one of its three pillars. The first Commission President following the creation of the EU was Jacques Delors.
• The European Union (EU) is a politico-economic union of 28 member states in Europe(only Cyprus is in Asia).
• On 1 December 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force and reformed many aspects of the EU. It changed the legal structure of the European Union by merging the three pillars and abolished the European Community; with the European Union becoming the Community's legal successor. Only one of the three European Communities still exists and the phrase "European Communities" no longer appears.It created a permanent President of the European Council(first Herman Van Rompuy), and strengthened the High Representative( currently Catherine Ashton).
• The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished.EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital, enact legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade,agriculture,fisheries, and regional development.
• The monetary union (Euro Zone)was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002 in 12 of the member states. It is currently composed of 18 member states that use the euro as their legal tender. 
• Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the WTO, the G8, and the G-20.
• With a combined population of over 500 million inhabitants or 7.3% of the world population,GDP of 16.584 trillion US dollars, 23% of global nominal GDP and 20% in terms of PPP. If it were a country, the EU would come first in nominal GDP and second in GDP (PPP) in the world.26 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index. 
• In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Constitutional nature of EU:

• Historically,  the EU is an international organisation, and by some criteria, it could be classified as a confederation; but it also has many attributes of a federation.The organisation has, in the past, been termed sui generis (incomparable, one of a kind).
• The organisation itself has traditionally used the terms "community", and later "union". The difficulties of classification involve the difference between national law (where the subjects of the law include natural persons and corporations) and international law (where the subjects include sovereign states and international organisations).In terms of the European constitutional tradition, the term federation is equated with a sovereign federal state in international law; so the EU cannot be called a federal state or federation. 
• Though not, strictly, a federation, it is more than a free-trade association.
• It is, however, described as being based on a federal model or federal in nature. Some call it "an unfinished federal state". 
• The German Constitutional Court refers to the European Union as an association of sovereign states and affirms that making the EU a federation would require replacement of the German constitution.
• Others claim that it will not develop into a federal state but has reached maturity as an international organisation.

Competences of EU:

• EU member states retain all powers not explicitly handed to the European Union. 
• In some areas the EU enjoys exclusive competence. These are areas in which member states have renounced any capacity to enact legislation. 
• In other areas the EU and its member states have shared competency to legislate. While both can legislate, member states can only legislate to the extent to which the EU has not.
• In other policy areas the EU can only co-ordinate, support and supplement member state action but cannot enact legislation(Supportive Competency).

Three Pillars Of EU:

• Between 1993 and 2009, the European Union (EU) legally comprised three pillars. This structure was introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993, and was eventually abandoned on 1 December 2009 upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, when the EU obtained a consolidated legal personality.

• Only the first pillar followed the principles of supranationalism(A supranational union is a type of multi-national organization where negotiated power is delegated to an authority by governments of member states).
• Competencies of the EEC fell within the European Community pillar. 
• The Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice are largely cut out of activities in the second and third pillars, with the Council dominating proceedings. This allowed the new areas to be based on intergovernmentalism (unanimous agreement between governments) rather than majority voting and independent institutions according to supranational democracy.

Governance:

• The EU operates within those competencies conferred on it by the treaties and according to the principle of subsidiarity (which dictates that action by the EU should only be taken where an objective cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states alone). 
• Laws made by the EU institutions can be classified into two groups: those which come into force without the necessity for national implementation measures and those which specifically require national implementation measures.

• The European Union has seven institutions:(1)the European Parliament(2) the Council of the European Union(or Council of Ministers)(3) the European Commission(4) the European Council(5) the European Central Bank (6)the Court of Justice of the European Union (7) the European Court of Auditors. 
• Competencies in scrutinising and amending legislation are divided between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union while executive tasks are carried out by the European Commission and in a limited capacity by the European Council (not to be confused with Council of the European Union). 
• The monetary policy of the eurozone is governed by the European Central Bank. 
• The interpretation and the application of EU law and the treaties are ensured by the Court of Justice of the European Union. 
• The EU budget is scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors.

(1)European Council:

• The European Council gives direction to the EU(negotiation of the treaty changes and EU's policy agenda and strategies). 
• It comprises the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and head of each member state.
• It is Union's "supreme political authority".
• On 19 November 2009, Herman Van Rompuy was chosen as the first permanent President of the European Council.
• The European Council should not be mistaken for the Council of Europe, an international organisation independent from the EU.

(2)European Commission:

• The European Commission acts as the EU's executive arm and is responsible for initiating legislation and the day-to-day running of the EU. It operates as a cabinet government, with 28 Commissioners for different areas of policy, one from each member state, though Commissioners are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state.
• One of the 28 is the Commission President appointed by the European Council. 
• After the President, the most prominent Commissioner is the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy who is ex-officio Vice-President of the Commission and is chosen by the European Council too.The other 26 Commissioners are subsequently appointed by the Council of the European Union.
• The 28 Commissioners as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament.

(3)The European Parliament:

• It forms one half of the EU's legislature (the other half is the Council of the European Union). The 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens every five years on the basis of proportional representation. Although MEPs are elected on a national basis, they sit according to political groups rather than their nationality. 
• After the Treaty of Maastricht, Parliament gained a much bigger role. Maastricht brought in the co-decision procedure, which gave it equal legislative power with the Council on Community matters.Both the Treaty of Amsterdam(1999) and the Treaty of Nice(2003) also extended co-decision procedure to nearly all policy areas, giving Parliament equal power to the Council in the Community. Hence, with the greater powers of the supranational institutions and the operation of Majority Voting in the Council, could be described as a more federal method of decision making.

• The Commission is accountable to Parliament
• The President of the European Parliament carries out the role of speaker in parliament and represents it externally. The EP President and Vice-Presidents are elected by MEPs every two and a half years.

(4)Council of the European Union:

• The Council of the European Union (also called the "Council" or the "Council of Ministers")forms the other half of the EU's legislature.
• Notwithstanding its meets in different configurations based on policy areas, it is considered to be one single body.
• In addition to its legislative functions, the Council also exercises executive functions in relations to the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

(5)The Court of Auditors:

• It aims to ensure that the budget of the European Union has been properly accounted for. The court provides an audit report for each financial year to the Council and the European Parliament. The Parliament uses this to decide whether to approve the Commission's handling of the budget. The Court also gives opinions and proposals on financial legislation and anti-fraud actions.
• The EU have budget of just above 1%  of the EU's GNI with largest expenditure on cohesion & competitiveness and then agriculture.

(6)The Court of Justice of the European Union:

• It consists of three courts: the Court of Justice, the General Court, and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal. Together they interpret and apply the treaties and the law of the EU.
• The Court of Justice primarily deals with cases taken by member states, the institutions, and cases referred to it by the courts of member states. The General Court mainly deals with cases taken by individuals and companies directly before the EU's courts,and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal adjudicates in disputes between the European Union and its civil service.Decisions from the General Court can be appealed to the Court of Justice but in certain cases.

(7)The European Central Bank:

• Central bank for the euro and administers monetary policy of the Eurozone(18 member states).

Positives and Negatives of EU:

Positives:

(1)Broad political and legal benefits

• European harmony - European Union countries are no longer at loggerheads like they were in the past. With the exception of civil war in Yugoslavia (which wasn't in the EU at the time), Europe has managed to heal the divisions which were so painfully exposed in the two World Wars in the Twentieth Century.Many Eastern European countries are keen to join the EU because they feel it will help promote economic and political stability and EU also contributed to bring democracies in many European nations especially after fall of USSR.
• Legal and human rights:The EU has a strong commitment to human rights, preventing discrimination and the due process of law. This makes the EU attractive to countries, such as the Ukraine who wish to share in similar legal and human rights. Prospect of membership has helped modernise countries, such as Turkey. The Copenhagen Criteria for EU membership enshrine commitment to human rights, rule of law and market economy. The prospect of gaining membership of the EU, encourage countries to implement human rights legislation.
• Being part of a large supranational organisation means that a country has a greater influence with world affairs, as they both represent themselves and are represented by the EU .It also ensures its safety and less expenditures on defence.
• The Working Time Directive means workers are protected from exploitation. In addition, consumers are granted consumer rights not seen almost anywhere else in the world. 
• Greater cooperation on issues of national security, including drug trafficking and cyber-crime. 
• A European Health Insurance Card means that if you fall ill or get injured in another EU country, you can get the same level of medical care that a citizen of that country would get. This relates to EU citizenship.
• (Write more points from the chapter explained above)

(2)Economic benefits: 

• EU is one of strongest economic areas in the world. With 500 million people, it has 7.3% of the world's population, but accounts for 23% of nominal global GDP.
• Free trade and removal of non-tariff barriers have helped reduce costs and prices for consumers. Increased trade to the EU creates jobs and higher income.
• Single Market has boosted the EU’s GDP by €877 billion iin 10 years
• Removal of customs barriers mean 60 million customs clearance documents per year no longer need to be completed, cutting bureaucracy and reducing costs and delivery times
• Countries in the EU, are amongst the highest positions in the Human Development Index(HDI)
• Poorer counties, such as Ireland, Portugal and Spain have made significant degrees of economic development since they joined the European Union. 
• Social cohesion fund. This has invested in poorer areas of the EU to help reduce regional disparities. 
• EU structural funds to help Eastern European economies develop will benefit other European nations' export in the long term because as they become more affluent, they will be able to buy more.
• The European Union has attracted greater inward investment from outside the EU.
• The European Social Fund (ESF)

(3)Labour and free movement of people

• Free movement of labour and capital have helped create a more flexible economy. 
• Far from 'taking jobs', migration has helped increase productive capacity and makes a net contribution to tax revenues.
• Easier to study and use qualifications in different member countries. This makes it easier to work abroad without having to retrain in different national qualifications.
• Mutual recognition of safety standards and rules have helped reduce costs for firms. This has encouraged the development of small and medium business who rely on low cost of exports.
• Social charter enshrines protection for workers such as maximum working week, right to collective bargaining and fair pay for employment. 
• European Arrest Warrant (EAW) scheme has made it easier to track criminals across the European continent.

Environmental benefits of the EU

• The EU have raised the quality of sea water and beeches, by implementing regulations on water standards.
• Tackling global warming.
• Tackling acid rain.

Consumer benefits of the EU

• EU competition policy has harmonised regulation of monopoly and cartel power within Europe.
• The EU has reduced the price of making mobile phone calls abroad. 
• Consumers are free to shop in any EU countries without paying any tariffs or excise duties when they return home.

Negatives:

• The larger European Member States contribute (financially) more to the organization. On the other hand, they still exert more influence in decision-making and policy making. 
• The EU has taken away some powers, such as trade agreements and has led to a greater influx of immigrants in some countries. 
• The Common Fisheries Policy has had arguably some negative effects on the fishing industry. 
• The Euro has suffered from serious problems in recent years, as there was a lack of fiscal or banking union. 
• EU working time directive has led to higher costs to business and higher costs to consumers. 
• The EHI Card also means EU nationals can use the National Health Service to cover their medical costs 
• The ‘single currency’ poses a great problem – not all member countries are using the Euro though the EU emphasized its use; still, many problems have risen over the years
• Overcrowding – it was mentioned earlier that the citizens of member countries are free to move from one place to another; this has led to overcrowding in the major cities and it has increased prices of houses, as well as congestion on the roads
• Migration problems
• Pressure towards austerity
• More bureaucracy less democracy
• Inefficient policies. A large percentage of EU spending goes on the Common Agricultural Policy. For many years this distorted agricultural markets by placing minimum prices on food. This lead to higher prices for consumers and encouraging over-supply.Common Agricultural Policy which resulted to oversupply and higher prices of goods