European Union

The European Union is a political and economic power that has 27 members, it was establish on 1 November 1993, it is a strong force, EU combined generates an estimated 30% share (US$18.4 trillion in 2008) of the nominal gross world product.

These are the 27 members: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

At the beginning there were only 6 (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranationalism and intergovernmentalism. The EU is based on a series of treaties. These first established the European Community and the EU, and then made amendments to those founding treaties.