Europe is our common home

Plan.

1. Introduction.
2. Passport. a) Aria. b) Recourses. c) Population. d) The largest countries. e) The longest rivers, the largest lakes, the highest mountains. f) Languages.
3) The origin of the word Europe.
4) Geographical position.
5) Boundaries.
6) Climate.
7) Countries and languages.
8) Religions.
9) History of Europe.

I`d like to tell you about Europe. Europe is our common home. All the history is going up from Europe. Europeans had opened other continent and the European languages are speaking all over the world today. It consists of 42 countries, such as the UK, France, Germany and others, and Russia is among them. Europe is the second smallest part of the world after
Australia. The area of Europe is about 10 million sq. km. The population is about 700 million people. The largest countries by the area are: the
European part of Russia (4 million sq. km.) and the Ukraine (600.000 sq. km.). The largest countries by population are the European part of Russia
(100 million people) and Germany (79 million people). There are some facts about Europe.

|Europe. |Area. | | |the | |
| | | | |Altitude. | |
| |million |% of the |the middle |the highest|the lowest |
|Name. |sq. km. |dry-land |(metres) |point (m.) |point (m.) |
|Facts. |10.2 |6.8 |300 |4807 |- 28 |

The longest rivers in Europe are: the Volga (3`530 km.) and the Danube.
The largest lake is the Caspian Sea (371`000 sq. km.). The highest peak is
Elbrus (5`642 m.), the lowest point is the Caspian sea (28 m. below the sea level).

There are much recourse in Europe, among them are: coal, oil, gas, precious metals and metal ores. For example, today in Turkey there is ‘the golden fever’.

Europe is named after a legendary Phoenician princess Europa. The Greeks gave her name to the island and mainland of Greece. A Greek historian
Herodotos, when writing about the war between the Greeks and Persians in
5th century BC called all land west of the Bosporus “Europe”; east of the
Bosporus - “Asia”, and so it has remained.

There is another explanation of where the name Europe comes from. The
Assyrians used to speak “asy” (“the land of rising sun”) and “ereb” (“the land of setting sun” or “the mainland”). They passed these names on to
Greeks and eventually they become Asia and Europe.

Europe is a part of the continent of Eurasia.

There are 42 countries in Europe. Most of them are on the mainland. Some of the countries lie on islands, for example the U.K., Iceland, and Cyprus.
Such countries as Italy lie on the peninsulas. Europe is washed by the
Arctic Ocean in the North, by the Atlantic ocean and the North sea in the
West, by the Mediterranean and Black sea in the South. In fact Europe is really a westward exlention of Asia.

There are many mountains in Europe. The best known are: the Alps, the
Pyrenies, the Caucasus and the Urals. Elbrus is the highest peak (5`642 m.). There are many rivers in Europe. The most important are: the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, the North Dvina, the Elber, the Rhine in Germany, the
Seine in France. The largest lakes are the lake Onega and the lake Ladoga.

Most winds in Europe come from the West. They are wet because they have come from the Atlantic Ocean. The arrangement of the peninsulas, mountains and seas allows these wet winds to blow far inland, bringing rain. In winter warm Atlantic Ocean current keeps the coast free from ice. Far from the sea, for example in Russia, winters can be very cold. The Mediterranean region has warm, wet winters and hot , dry summers. {There is a long period of sunshine and clean blue sky in summer.}

In sprite of Europe is the second smallest part of the world, it is the most crowded; 1/8 of the entire world`s people live in Europe.

Many languages are spoken in Europe. Among them are English, French,
German, Spanish, Russian and others. The languages, spoken in Europe, can tell us much about the history of the countries. German, Dutch, Danish,
Swedish and English are all German languages. Polish, Bulgarian, Slovak and
Serbo-Croat are Slavonic languages. Russian, Italian, Spanish, Romanian,
French developed out of the Latin language. Today European can be heard all over the world: English in North America and Australia, French in Canada and Southeast Asia, and Spanish in Africa. All this facts prove that
European languages are spread all over the world.

The borders of European states have changed many times. For example, the states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became independent states in 1920, but in 1940 they became republics of the USSR. In 1991 they declared their independence again. In 1993 two independent republics, the Czech republic and Slovakia were created out of former Czechoslovakia. These facts prove, that the process of forming the countries still going on.

People belong to different religions in Europe. In southern Europe and
Poland most Christians belong to the Catholic Church. In northern Europe the churches are mainly Protestant. Such countries as Great Britain and
Ireland belong to the Protestant Church. Greeks, Bulgarians, some Yugoslavs and Russians belong to the Orthodox Church. Also there are many other religions, such as Muslim, Buddhism and others.

There are Jews living in most European countries, through few in Germany and eastern Europe where they exterminated by the Axis in the Holocaust, since WW-II immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, Turkey, India and
Pakistan have settled in parts of France, Germany, Scandinavia and Britain.

So we can see, that there are 42 countries in Europe, people of different nationalities live there, they speak different languages and belong to different religions; but all of them want to live in peaceful coexistence and economic co-operation; that’s why new institutions had to be set up.

After World War II a number of countries in Western Europe began to co- operate more closely with each other. Then in 1957 the European Economic
Community commonly known as the Common Market, was founded by the Treaty of
Rome. The first six members of the European Community were France, Germany,
Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. Goods could be sold between these six countries without extra import taxes and people were free to take jobs in any of the other countries.

In order to make decisions and administer the Community, new institution had to be set up. By 1967 there was a Council of Ministers, a Commission, a
European Parliament and a Court of Justice. The Council of Ministers was made up of ministers from each country's government. It has the final say on the policies and programmes of the Community. The Commission is made up of two people from each larger country and one from each smaller country.
They take decisions on routine matters and propose new laws.

The members of the European Parliament are directly elected by voters in each member state. The Parliament is able to comment on proposals, put up by the commissioners and influence the budget and it is slowly gaining more powers.

The Court of justice has the power to enforce Community law on member states. {This Court has sometimes overturned a decision made by the British law courts.} All citizens of Community countries have the right to appeal to the European Court of Justice.

From l973 to 1986 Denmark, the Irish Republic, the United Kingdom,
Greece, Spain and Portugal joined the Community. So it increased from the original six to twelve member states. In 1987 these twelve member states passed the Single European Act. This meant that from the end of 1992 money, goods, services and people could move Freely within the Community without customs and other controls at the frontiers. Any citizen of a member state can start a business, hire workers and sell product as easily in another member country as in his own. Workers are able to use their skills to find jobs anywhere throughout the Community.

For many people the main purpose of the European Community is to create a continent whose countries need never go to war with each other again, because Europe is our common home.

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