Speech practice

Dwell on the Topic 1

The European Union

The European Union (EU) is an integration organization the principal aim of which is creation of union among the peoples of Europe. Any European State that respects the democratic principles of social structure: “the principles of liberty, democracy, human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law” may apply to become a member of the Union. To enter the European Union, a country should have a sufficiently high level of economic development comparable with the average indices of the EU. It also should carry out the legal reforms to bring in advance its home legislation into conformity with legal norms of the European Union. The EU is, in fact, unique. Its Member States have set up common institutions to which they delegate some of their sovereignty so that decisions on specific matters of joint interest can be made democratically at European level. This pooling of sovereignty is also called “European integration”. Attempts to unite the disparate nations of Europe precede the modern nation states; they have occurred repeatedly throughout the history of Europe. Following the catastrophes of the First World War and the Second World War, the impetus for the founding of (what was later to become) the European Union greatly increased, driven by the determination to rebuild Europe and to eliminate the possibility of another war.

At the beginning, the Member States of the European Union have become 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 Netherlands (the “Maastricht Treaty”).

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;

-  the creation of an economic and financial union based on the single monetary unit of EU - the Euro;

-  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, transport, ecological policy, immigration 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 justice”

-  the transformation of the European Union into an independent participant in international relations, the establishment of partner relations between the Union and foreign states.

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.

Dwell on the Topic 2