European Union

Tatevik Zohrabyan

Agribusiness Teaching Center

International Trade

Fall 2002

European Union (EU)

Abstract

This paper is about the EU, its major policies, the key objectives, legislations, instruments for implementing those policies, who the members are, and the institutions involved in the implementation of the trade goals.

Key word: European Union; Mission of the EU.

Introduction

The establishment of the EU intended to work toward common goals of European countries. This free trade zone or economic community was and is very successful which seeks special purposes such as political dialogue, free trade and freedom of movement, economic, financial, and cultural cooperation. Special attention was focused on the trade laws, regulations, and other issues (Kotler, 1999, p. 371).

The key objectives are to keep market open, ensure fair trade, enforce the legislation objectively and transparently, ensure trade partners respect WTO legislation, and promote improvements to the system (European Union). The EU provides sovereignty to its Members to act as independent ones on behalf of the EU or in other words to welfare and interest of the Union as a whole (European Union).

The integration of the EU after 2nd World War enabled the EU is to raise standards of living, build an internal market, launch the common currency - euro, strengthen the Union’s voice in the world. To realize these goals the EU has been implementing several trade defense instruments:

Anti – dumping policy

Anti – subsidy policy

Regulation on trade barriers

Protective measures.

The EU even uses a common currency, the euro monetary system which tend to make the trade zone more effective and compatible in the international market (European Union). The EU has such a structure that there are 5 institutions and each of them is responsible for a respective objective (European Union).

Today the EU is one of the influential and largest trade blocs or single markets that includes 15 member countries. Those 15 member countries totally have more than 370 million consumers and account for 20% of the world’s exports. The EU is going to enlarge and accept 13 European countries. The EU also intended to improve the relations with non-member countries and for this purpose it planed to develop special policies on trade with nonmember countries (Kotler, 1999, p. 371).

Nowadays, the EU is on the 5th place ahead of the US and Japan. The EU is the leading player in international market (European Union).

European Union

The European Union (EU) was established after 2nd World War. France officially undertook the establishment of the EU proposing to create “the first concrete foundation of a European federation”. On May 9, 1950 the EU was created and initially six European countries joint to the EU: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. Then 9 countries joint to the EU and today the number of the member countries is 15 (later joint Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Finland, and Sweden) (European Union).

The EU today is preparing for the accession of 13 European countries – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Turkey. In order to join the EU, these countries need to fulfill the economic and political requirements, which in other terms called “Copenhagen criteria”. Those requirements are mainly related to the following:

Member countries must be a stable democracy, respecting human rights, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities;

Member countries must have a functioning market economy;

Member countries adopt the common rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law.

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