Making sense of the European Union: it's history, makeup and legislation policies.

Since the European Union became official in 1993, there has been confusion regarding it's actual makeup. For the American organizations doing European business, it's been tough to keep all the information straight. Which countries are participating? What languages are spoken? What's the difference between the "EU." and the "E.E.C.?" The following primer answers these questions and outlines a brief history of what is now known as "the EU."

What is the European Union or EU, Anyway?

"European Union" is the name of the organization for the European member countries that have decided to co-operate on a number of areas, ranging from a single market to foreign policy, and from mutual recognition of school diplomas to exchange of criminal records. This cooperation is in various forms, officially referred to as three "pillars":

1. The [three] European Communities (EC, supranational)

2. The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, intergovernmental)

3.The Co-operation in the Fields of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, intergovernmental)

The former, Conservative, government of the UK decided not to participate in co-operation on social matters, which was designed to be part of the revised EEC Treaty (and thus of the first pillar). All other member states then decided to include this co-operation in a separate Social Chapter, or rather a separate social protocol, added to the Maastricht Treaty, and which is not applicable to the UK. As such, this area could now be considered a fourth pillar, although most observers still consider it part of the first pillar as it is a supranational form of cooperation. The UK Labour party repeatedly promised to remove the British opt-out to the Social Chapter if elected. Now that Labour has been elected, the UK is wholly expected to become a participant in the Social Chapter.

When and how did the EU come into being? A Brief history

The European Union as an umbrella organization came into existence only in November 1993, after the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Its constituent organizations were founded/organized as outlined below:

1952

The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established by the Treaty of Paris (1951).

1954

The European Defense Community (EDC) Treaty, signed in Paris (1952) and ratified by all five other ECSC member states, was vetoed by a majority of left-wing and right-wing radicals in the French Assemblee (August 30th). The Treaty had provided for a European army, a common budget and common institutions, among which a directly elected Common Assembly and for this Assembly to study ways of creating a federal organization with a clear separation of powers and a bicameral parliament. The French veto against the EDC Treaty also meant the end of the draft Treaty establishing a Political Community, approved by the ECSC Assembly on 10 March 1953.

1958

The European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) were established by the two Treaties of Rome (1957).

1967

The institutions of the ECSC, EEC and Euratom were merged, with a single European Commission replacing the ECSC High Authority, EEC Commission, Euratom Commission. A single "European Parliament" (though officially still called the European Parliamentary Assembly) replaced the three virtual Assemblies of the Communities, too, although the members of these Assemblies had always been the same people acting in different capacities on different matters.

1979

For the first time, Members of the European Parliament were elected directly by the people of all Member states (June 7-10).

1987

The Single European Act of 1987 provided the implementation provisions for the Single European Market, and it codified agreement on majority voting in the Council on a range of questions. It also formally codified the European Co-ordination in the Sphere of Foreign Policy, which was known as European Political Cooperation and dates back to the 1970 Davignon report.

1993

The European Union was established by the Maastricht Treaty which came into force in November 1993. It created an explicit three-pillar structure with a new Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) replacing the Single Act provisions in this field, and codifying the Co-operation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA). It also re-expanded the scope of the EEC, to include provisions for an Economic and Monetary Union with a single European currency from the end of the century onwards, and it re-baptized the EEC to simply European Community (EC).

What are the "official" languages of the EU?

Like most international organizations, the EU has two sorts of languages: official languages and working languages. Official languages are used for official public documents, especially those with legal value. Working languages are the languages used internally. Sometimes there is also talk of treaty languages. These are said to be official languages in which only basic legal texts are translated, and not all official public documents with legal value. Since EU legislation is directly applicable in national law, all languages with official legal status in one or more of the member states should be official EU languages as well. This means that there are now eleven official EU languages:

* German (88.8 million inhabitants of linguistic area: in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg)

* French (63.3 million, in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy)

* English (60.0 million, in UK and Republic of Ireland)

* Italian (56.4 million, in Italy)

* Spanish (39.2 million, in Spain)

* Dutch (21.1 million, in the Netherlands and Belgium)

* Greek (10.3 million, in Greece)

* Portuguese (9.8 million, in Portugal)

* Swedish (9.0 million, in Sweden and Finland)

* Danish (5.2 million, in Denmark)

* Finnish (4.7 million, in Finland).

Every member state has decided for itself what language(s) to make official EU languages; thus, these figures do not take into account recognized "minority" languages such as Catalan and Frisian, nor of officially recognized national languages such as Irish (which is considered a "treaty" language, not an "official" language) and Letzebuergesch (which has been recognized as a national language since 1983).

Council members have never been able to agree on a limit to the number of working languages within the institutions. All official languages are considered equal in every way. It should be noted though that, in practice, some languages are more equal than others. The Commission has limited much of its internal translations to French, English and German; some informal meetings do not have interpreters at all and are conducted in English entirely. The Court of Justice uses French as an internal working language. This is due to the fact that French is considered a more juristic language (containing heightened precision and vocabulary) than English.

EU interpretation services have already noted that the current expansion to eleven working languages will already be virtually unworkable; an expansion to sixteen or more (with some former Eastern Bloc countries joining) will be technically impossible. It is therefore expected that the number of working languages will soon be limited to three (English, French and German) or five (with Italian and Spanish), if only for passive use (languages to translate into).

Quick guide to EU legislation

EU legislation is known for its complexities and subtleties.

All legislation, however, is concluded by some combination of:

* European Commission (makes proposals and oversees the process)

* European Parliament

* Council of Ministers (the representatives of the Member States and the group that contains the most voting power)

Main types of legislation

Regulations

These are effectively equivalent to statutes in the UK [or "Arrete Ministeriel/Royal" that most member states have an equivalent of] i.e. they are effective as law without any further intervention/action on the part of the Member States.

Directives

These are "binding as to the result to be achieved" - i.e. they state the goal that is aimed at, but leave the Member States with some discretion as to how to achieve it. The amount of discretion varies greatly. One of the reasons for the use of directives is that it is believed that the different Member States would need to approach the same problems in different ways because of the differences in their legal systems.

Because directives need to be "transposed" into national law (i.e. national legislation must be passed to implement the goals of the directive) a time limit is provided in the directive by which time the directive must have been implemented. Vocal cynics have argued that directives have been increasingly used in circumstances where the Member States simply want to avoid a particular piece of legislation coming into force - Because the Member States must transpose the directives, they obviously have a certain measure of discretion as to how this is done.

Decisions

Decisions do not have general application but are binding on those to whom they are addressed (i.e.businesses).

What countries are members of the EU?

The EU now consists of 15 member states. Its original membership of six was gradually enlarged as follows:

From 1952 (original ECSC membership):

* Belgium (BE);

* Germany (DE), the 5 new Lander of the former GDR joined in 1991;

* France (FR);

* Italy (IT):

* Luxembourg (LU);

* Netherlands (NL);

From 1973 (first enlargement):

* Denmark (DK);

* Republic of Ireland (IE):

* United Kingdom (GB);

* [Norwegians rejected membership];

From 1981 (second enlargement):

* Greece (GR);

From 1986 (third enlargement):

* Portugal (PT);

* Spain (ES);

From 1995 (fourth enlargement):

* Austria (AT);

* Finland (Fl);

* Sweden (SE);

* [Norwegians rejected membership again];

Countries being considered for the fifth enlargement:

* Bulgaria (BL);

* Cyprus (CY);

* Czech Republic (CZ);

* Estonia (EE);

* Hungary (HU);

* Latvia (LV);

* Lithuania (LT);

* Malta (MT);

* Poland (PL);

* Romania (RU);

* Slovakia (SK);

* Slovenia (SL).

Turkey and Morocco have applied for membership in the past, but their candidacies were rejected. Turkey did finally get its long-awaited customs union treaty with the EU in 1996.

Paul Williams is Supplements Editor for the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Additional facts and material were provided by Roland Sieblink and Bart Schelfhount two authors and European Union experts based in Germany.