1. European Union Integration

European Union

• After Second World War Europe’s economy became worst, USA introduced “Marshall Plan”
• Marshall Plan (1948):
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1. Under the Marshall Plan, the organization for European Economic Cooperation was the established in 1948 it was made to help the western European states.
2. The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) became a forum where the western European states began to cooperate on trade and economic issues.
3. The Council of Europe was introduced in 1949, for political cooperation.
4. Then European Economic Community was formed in 1957, then European Parliament was formed
5. After the disintegration of USSR, European countries got confused at whether they should join USA or remain with USSR so therefore they formed European Union in 1992
6. Did this to cooperate with foreign policy that is no war and peace everywhere.
7. And decided to use common currency in European Union i.e., EURO
8. European Union started behaving like nation state i.e., country
9. It could not make its own constitution so it made its own flag, anthem, founding date, and currency.

• European Union had only a few members in the starting but soon it started to expand.
• EU has good economic, political and diplomatic, and military influence.
• The EU is the world’s second biggest economy with GDP of more than $17 trillion in the 2016 which is next to the United States of America.
• The EU possess a threat to the dominance US dollar.
• European Union’s share of world trade is much larger than that of the United states.
• European Union has influence over Africa, Asia and World Trade Organization (WTO) because of its economic power.
• European Union has influence over UN Security Council because Britain and France (countries in EU) are 2 permanent members of UN.
• The European Union also includes several non- permanent members of the UNSC, which enables European Union to influence some US policies such as the current US position on Iran’s nuclear program.
• Militarily, the EU’s combined armed forces are the second largest in the world.
•  Its total spending on defense is second after the US.
• 2 EU member states, Britain and France, have nuclear arsenals of the approximately 550 nuclear warheads.
• It is also the world’s second most important source of the space and communication technology.
• As European Union is a supranational organization it is able to intervene in economic, political and social areas.
• European Union’s member states have their own Foreign Relations and different policies that are often at odds with each other.
• This limits the ability of the European Union to act in matters of the Foreign Relations and defense.
• Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, kept the UK out of the European market.
• Denmark and Sweden have resisted the Maastricht treaty and adoption of the euro.