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In Europe
 The
European Union – an introduction:
The European Union (EU) is a family of
democratic European countries working together to improve
life for their citizens and to build a better world.
In just half a century it has delivered
peace and prosperity in Europe, a single currency and
a frontier-free 'single market' where people, goods,
services and capital can move around freely. It has
become a major trading bloc, and a world leader in fields
such as environmental protection and development aid.
No wonder it has grown from its original six to twenty
seven members - with more countries queuing up to join.
The European Union's success owes much
to the unusual way in which it works. Unusual because
the EU is not a federation like the United States; nor
is it simply an organisation for cooperation between
governments, like the United Nations. It is, in fact,
unique. The countries that make up the EU (its 'member
states') remain independent sovereign nations but they
pool their sovereignty in order to gain a strength and
world influence none of them could have alone.
Pooling sovereignty means, in practice,
that the member states delegate some of their decision-making
powers to shared European institutions they have created,
so that decisions on specific matters of joint interest
can be made democratically at European level.
Europe's three main decision making institutions
are:
The European
Parliament (EP), which represents the EU's
citizens and is directly elected by them;
The Council
of the European Union, which represents
the individual member states;
The European
Commission, which seeks to uphold the interests
of the Union as a whole.
The 'institutions', working together as
a whole, create the policies and laws that apply throughout
the EU. In principle, it is the Commission that proposes
new European laws, but it is the Parliament and the
Council that enact them.
It is the responsibility of the European
Court of Justice to uphold the rule of European law,
and the Court of Auditors to check the financing of
the Union's activities.
In addition, a number of other institutions
and bodies have been created to help make the EU work;
amongst them are the European Central Bank, which is
responsible for European monetary policy within the
'Euro zone' and the European Ombudsman, who investigates
complaints about maladministration by EU institutions
and bodies.
The powers and responsibilities of the
EU institutions, and the rules and procedures they must
follow, are laid down in the treaties on which the EU
is founded. The treaties are agreed voluntarily and
democratically by the presidents and prime ministers
of all the EU countries and ratified by their parliaments.
Based on the treaties, EU institutions can adopt legislation,
which is then implemented by the Member States. The
most recent treaty, the Treaty of Lisbon, aims to replace
all the existing treaties with a single text which,
amongst other things, recalls the history and heritage
of Europe and its determination to transcend its divisions,
and lays down the principles, objectives and institutional
provisions governing the new European Union - a Union
fit for the 21st Century, and beyond.
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