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S.Yu.Kashkin

EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union (EU) is an integration organization whose principal aim is “creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe” (Article 1 of the Treaty on the European Union).

Any European State that respects the democratic principles of social structure: “the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law” may apply to become a member of the Union (Articles 6 and 49 of the Treaty on European Union).

To enter the European Union, a country should also have a sufficiently high level of economic development comparable with the average indices of the EU and also should carry out the legal reforms to bring in advance its home legislation into conformity with legal norms of the European Union.

At present, the Member States of the European Union are Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany (since 1951); Britain, Denmark, Ireland (since 1973); Greece (since 1981); Spain, Portugal (since 1986); Austria, Finland, and Sweden (since 1995) - 15 countries in all.

The 10 new Member States signed The Treaty of Accession on April 16, 2003. They are: Hungary, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czechia, and Estonia.

The candidate States, which are now carrying on negotiations on joining the Union, are Bulgaria and Rumania. With a number of provisos, Turkey has also been accepted as a candidate State.

The European Union was formed gradually along with the intensification of integration processes between its Member States and peoples. The step-like character of forming the European Union also shows itself in the modern structure of this organization.

At the first stage, in the 1950s, those European Communities were established that aimed at the creation and regulation of a common market of European countries: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The most important of above organizations is EEC, which is officially called European Community (EC) since the end of 1993.

The next stage in the preparation for creating the European Union was establishing in 1970 a special mechanism for coordination of international activity of the member States with the purpose of forming the “European foreign policy” It was the European political cooperation, being now the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (CFSP).

Beginning from 1975, the Member States began to develop the common measures against crime. It is the Police and Judicial Cooperation (PJC), previously (until May 1, 1999) the Cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs.

All three spheres and mechanisms of integration were united within the framework of a single integration organization, according to the 1992 Treaty on European Union signed in Maastricht, Netherlands (the “Maastricht Treaty”). At the same time, the European Communities established before did not ceased to exist when the European Union was created.

The European Community, ECSC, and Euratom as a whole are called, within the framework of the political and legal doctrine, and sometimes in the official documents, the first “pillar” of the European Union. The second and the third pillars are the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Police and Judicial Cooperation (PJC), respectively.

The Paris Treaty on the ECSC 1951 expired in 2002, and the activity of the ECSC had finished.

Thus, from the viewpoint of its internal design, the European Union is an organization with a complex structure consisting of three components (“pillars”) European Communities, CFSP, and PJC. The functioning of each “pillar” is ruled by separate legal sources of the European Union, which are different in nature and content.

The three “pillars” of the Union are united, first of all, by the common aims and principles stated directly by the Treaty on European Union and by the same composition of the Member States. An important condition of integrity of the European Union is its single system of governing bodies – the institutions of European Union.

As concerns the character of its competence, the European Union is a supra-State (supranational) organization of political power, in favor of which the member States have voluntarily limited their sovereignty. The current European Union is a State-like formation, which is gradually evolving toward a full-fledged federation. At the same time, the European Union is still keeping some common features of an international (intergovernmental) organization and a confederation of States.

The federalization is the main trend of development of the European communities and the Union since the moment of their establishment and till now. The most fundamental achievements on this path are:

-   the creation of a common market as a basis for the single internal market of the EU, i. e., “an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty” (Article 14 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community);

-    the creation of an economic and financial union based on the single monetary unit of EU – the Euro (not yet participated by Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, which for various reasons keep their national monetary units);

-   the creation of the Schengen area and introducing a single visa for foreigners on the basis of the Schengen Agreements;

-    the development and carrying out by the EU institutions of the common policy in various spheres: a common agricultural policy, a policy of competition, immigration, transport, ecological policy etc.;

-    the formation of the EU legislation – an independent legal system regulating many important spheres of social relations with the participation of Member States, juridical persons, and common citizens;

-   the introduction of the Union citizenship institution as a stable immediate legal link between the citizens of the member States and the European Union. A new complex source establishing the foundations of the legal position of Union citizens is the 2000 European Union Charter on fundamental rights;

-    the adoption of a law on the European company – a single organizational and legal form of a juridical person, which can be used for carrying out the business activity on the entire territory of the European Union;

-   the development of legislation and adoption of organizational measures in the judicial sphere, aimed at turning the European Union as a whole into “an area of freedom, security and justuce” (Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union). It includes the normative acts directed against terrorism, counterfeiting, money laundering, and other forms of “transnational” crime; establishing the minimal standards for defending the rights of people suffering from crime; creation of the European police agency (Europol); preparation for introducing the “European arrest warrant”, etc.;

-   the transformation of the European Union into an independent participant in international relations, the establishment of partner relations between the Union and foreign States including the Russian Federation (The 1994 Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation and other agreements between Russia and EU on special issues).

In the beginning of the 21^st century the European Union entered a new stage of transformations aimed at making this organization a more democratic one capable of efficient functioning in the conditions of about thirty Member States.

The reforms in the European Union are carried out gradually. The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty (put into effect on May 1, 1999) and the 2001 Nice Treaty (put into effect on Februar 1, 2003) have introduced partial modifications in the contents of constituent documents of the European Union.

The more radical modifications have been delayed till 2004. To prepare for them, a “Convent on the future of the Union” was established in 2002, being a representative body uniting the national and the “European” parliamentarians (members of Europarliament), and also special representatives of the heads of States or heads of governments of the Union countries, and also representatives of the Head of the European Commission (the executive body of the EU). The chair of the Convent is the former President of France Valery Giscard d'Estaing. One of the key issues to be discussed by the Convent is the issue of development of the Constitution of the European Union.

Published: “Global Studies: Encyclopedia” – M. Raduga Publishers. 2003. P. 142–144.