GENERAL OVERVIEW

EU: Growing Number of Member States

Since its beginning, what has become the European Union has been expanding geographically but also conceptually from what was strictly a regional international organization of limited scope made up of independent nations toward something that has some aspects of sovereignty that in some senses makes it a government independent of its Member States. The Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 marks that change with the language describing the EU as “an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, where decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen.” That replaces the language – “Union with a federal goal” – used only five years earlier in the Maastricht Treaty. That movement toward further union is now on pause because by referenda the French and Dutch people voted against the ratification of the proposed EU Constitution, which was designed to simplify the Treaties underlying the EU. Although eleven states had ratified the Constitution by the time of the vote in France and the Netherlands, the rejection by the two in 2005 has resulted in the establishment of a “period of reflection” about the future. That period was recently extended until mid-2007.

The European Union has, since its beginning in 1957, been engaged in an ongoing process of geographic enlargement. The first six founding members were: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.