February 6, 2009

• The europian union's origins are from the European Coal and Steel company in 1951.
• A treaty for the company was signed by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Luxemburg
• The treaty made a single market in Coal and Steel through the gradual elimination of tarrifs and other limits on trade.
• The European Union set up for governmental bodies: High Authority, Council of ministers, court of justice, and parliament.
• Since the beggining of the union the reach had grown through numerous treaties to include the treaty of Rome in 1957, the European Act of 1985, and the Mastrich Treaty in 1993
• The Mastrich treaty allowed the union to have power in transportation, health, environment, tourism, and many other fields of business.
• The Mastrich treaty created European citizenship and allowed people to live, work, and vote in any european country. It also created the common currency and central bank in 1999 which Britain did not buy into.
• Today the union has a 27 member supranational commission that makes rules and regulations of European policy.
• There are over 2500 ranking civil servants
• The Council of Ministers represents the members of individual nations and this is primarily made up of Prime Ministers.
• For a proposal to become a law it must first be passed by the Council of Ministers and it must have a unanimous vote.
• The council of ministers must act unanimously on constitutional issues, accepting new states, and common foreign and security policy.
• The treaty of Nice in 2003 assigned each country the number of votes in proportion to its share of european population.
• Each country must cast all votes as a block.
• The European Court of Justice resolves disputes on European law and legislation passed by the council.
• The European Union law takes precedent over country law.
• The 526 members of the European Parliament is chosen every 5 years by the votes of the European citizens.
• Parliament gets consulted twice in the legislative process and issues an opinion on laws being made.
• If parliament doesn't take action in 3 months the law is passed
• If the parliament issues amendments then the commission must make a recomendation within one month
• The council can overide a proposal with a unanimous vote.
• The parliament has power to fire the intire commission.
• The parliament cannot appoint individual members to the comission.
• The parliament holds some budgetary powers
• Later treaties extend parliamentary powers into policy enable parliament to request proposals and conduct investigations.
• Efforts to unionize Europe has increased in 2004
• The Union has drafted the European Union constitution in.
• The European Union has launched a satelite
• 2008 the Union commited to plan to reduce Green house gas emissions by 20%
• The Union has endorsed a $260 billion stimulus plan in 2008
• The Lisben treaty in 2007 tries to ratify the constitution but in 2008 Ireland rejects the treaty