The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European states having demorgaphy of 500 millions.There are several important institutions of the European Union such as European Commission, the Council of European Union, the Court of Justice of Europe and the European Central Bank.The members of the European Parliament are directly elected every five years by the states of the countries of Europe.
In the history of Europe the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is the benchmark for peace and to end the longest war in Europe. Even after the treaty of Westphalia,for the several centuries, the european countries were mired in the deep crisis of mutual hostility, conspiracies and intrigues, which had caused internecine warfare in Europe.
After the first world war, the treaty of Versaille in 1919, which was considered an unilateral decision of the Allied powers against the Germans with the treatment of humilation to the German delegates also imposed a huge indeminity of war on Germany and also given all the mines of coal to France.The coal mines were an important natural resource for economical development in the beginning of 20th century.Consequently,in Germany there was a grave economical crisis which also paved the way for rising the neo-nazi movement leaded by Rudolf Hitlor.The second world war was proven a great disaster for humanity, the war was waged in the form of extremism through holocaust and also using the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagaski, which was a catastrophic event of the human history.
The elections in Great Britain after the second world war was a land-slide victory for the labour party rejecting the legendary hero of war Winston Churchill with the slogan of “the Britain need a hero of peace, not a hero of war”. After two years Winston Churchill himself conceded in his famous speech of Zurich addressing to all leaders of Europe, about the necessity of “United States of Europe” with maintainning the identity of each country of Europe as member of the United States of Europe.With the same spirit of struggle for a United Europe the Council of Europe came into existence in 1949, with participation of 10 European countries but their attempt ended in fiasco to set up European Defence Community and European Political Community, perhaps the efforts of european leaders were overshadowed by the advent of cold war conflicts beween the world super powers.
The struggle for the economic and political unification of Europe continued even without participation of United Kingdom and Scandinivian countries.The six European countries, France, West Germany, Italy and Belgium, Luxembourg, Neitherland were successful to establish the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951.The purpose to create a common market of coal iron and steel production eliminating the different barriers, such as custom duties control,quotas etc. According to the agreement of ECSC every member had same access to the products of coal and steel industry, where they might be produced.Any kind of discrimination on the basis of nationality was not acceptable.The members were also successful to end the historic rivalry between France and Germany.It was acknowledged by the leaders of France and Germany that the consequences of the war was porved equally detrimental not only for both countries but also for the entire Europe.The all European leaders who advocated the idea for a United Europe realized that the peace is indispensable for a bright future of Europe.
The UK was not very much enthusiastic to join the six members of European Economic Community (EEC) in 1951 and in 1957 of Rome Treaty, but later on , UK realized the importance of EEC, the application for entrance of UK was refused twice , finally accepted in 1973, along with other two countries Denmark and Ireland.The EEC became 9 members of European countries, strong enough to under take further efforts of economical and political integration of Europe.The plan for single currency was conceived in order to meet the challenges of instability of international currency of USD.The UK again excluded himself not accepting the mono currency unlike other member of EEC.
In the third enlargement of EEC the Greece, Portugal and Spain were accepted as members , not on the economical back-ground, but on the political ground, as three countries were members of NATO.
The Maastrich treaty of European Union was to enhance the prospects of single currency and also removing the frontier barriers for the trade and travelling within the European countries and also for having a common foreign and security policy.The objective of the Maastrich treaty was also to meet the new political challenges caused by vanishing the Berlin Wall and to have a proper influence in the Easter Europe after losing the hold of the Souviet Union.
The big-bang enlargement of the European Union was decided at a summit in Copenhagen in 2002, where it was agreed to invite the countries of East Europe to the European Union.It is also noteworthy, that the Turkey was a candidate for European Union since 1963, the acceptance was delayed on the question of Turkey’s human rights record,about the political settlement of Kurdish people. Turkey was also asked by the EU members not to try hinder the accession of Cypress to the European Union and also given the condition to improve the relation with Greece.The EU has given to Turkey the status of associate member, and also given permission for the trade with countries of European Union.
According to the Lisbon treaty of November 2009, a significant development of EU is the first time nomination of a President of European Council, Mr. Herman Van Rompuy ex Belgian prime minister and a foreign secretary Catherine Ashton ex EU trade commissioner. Despite the drastic development in EU, yet lacked political clout to play a key role and influence the global summit on climate change of Copenhagen in December 2009. It is a general opinion that the EU may lacked the political authority in the international forum, but the EU presents an attractive economic,political and social model as positive image of EU to the entire world.The largest donation for the development of the poor countries of the world provide by the members states of EU.The states of EU are politicaly stable to give a good model example of Human Rights. Moreover, the citizens of the members states of EU are more previliged for having a better health insurance and old age pension with other social facelities of long vaccation and generous maternal leave for a comfortable life in europe.The China and USA has much to improve concernning health and retirement benefits of their citizens.
The Democracy and Human Rights are two basic principles of EU to enhace the relations with all countries of the world through the political dialogue and economical development.The EU strongly believe that the miltary forces rarely settle the political disputes.The political and public opinion in the EU countries are againist the use of force as miltary power.The Dutch political coalition of government collapsed because of dispute over the army deployment in Afghanistan.Similarly the German government faced an enormous problem for admitting that the German armies are for fighting against Taliban not for humanitarian assitance to the Afghan people.
The EU is ambitious to develope a common foreign policy based on the common interest of all the members states for the long term basis.The EU is concentrated now,to over come the economical crisis within europe such as the efforts to bail out the Greece and Spain from the euro crisis.
Karim Imamdad Hunzai
28 Feb, 2010; Paris
Ismailimail 