The 

European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located
primarily in Europe.[9] The union has a total area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an
estimated total population of about 447 million. An internal single market has been established
through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states in those matters, and only
those matters, where the states have agreed to act as one. EU policies aim to ensure the free
movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market;[10] enact legislation in
justice and home affairs; and maintain common policies on trade,[11] agriculture,
[12]
 fisheries and regional development.[13] Passport controls have been abolished for travel within
the Schengen Area.[14] A monetary union was established in 1999, coming into full force in 2002, and
is composed of 19 member states which use the euro currency. The EU has often been described
as a sui generis political entity (without precedent or comparison) with the characteristics of either a
federation or confederation.[15][16]
The union and EU citizenship were established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993.
[17]
 The EU traces its origins to the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European
Economic Community (EEC), established, respectively, by the 1951 Treaty of Paris and 1957 Treaty
of Rome. The original member states of what came to be known as the European Communities were
the Inner Six: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The
communities and their successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in
power by the addition of policy areas to their remit. The United Kingdom became the first member
state to leave the EU[18] on 31 January 2020. Before this, three territories of member states had left
the EU or its forerunners. The latest major amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU,
the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009.
Containing some 5.8 per cent of the world population in 2020,[d] the EU had generated a
nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$17.1 trillion in 2021,[6] constituting
approximately 18 per cent of global nominal GDP.[20][better  source  needed] Additionally, all EU countries have a
very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme. In
2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[21] Through the Common Foreign and Security
Policy, the union has developed a role in external relations and defence. It maintains
permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations,
the World Trade Organization, the G7 and the G20. Due to its global influence, the European Union
has been described by some scholars as an emerging superpower.[22][23][24]

history

Since the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby
co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in
the so-called European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction
européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the
principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from
the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman
Declaration.

During the centuries that followed the fall of Rome in 476, several European states viewed
themselves as translatio imperii ("transfer of rule") of the defunct Roman Empire: the Frankish
Empire (481–843) and the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) were thereby attempts to
resurrect Rome in the West.[e] This political philosophy of a supra-national rule over the continent,
similar to the example of the ancient Roman Empire, resulted in the early Middle Ages in the concept
of a renovatio imperii ("restoration of the empire"),[27] either in the forms of the Reichsidee ("imperial
idea")[28] or the religiously inspired Imperium Christianum ("christian empire").[29]
  Medieval Christendom and the political power of the Papacy have been cited as conducive to
[30]

European integration and unity.[31][32][33][34][relevant?]

In the oriental parts of the continent, the Russian Tsardom, and ultimately the Empire (1547–1917),
declared Moscow to be Third Rome and inheritor of the Eastern tradition after the fall of
Constantinople in 1453.[35] The gap between Greek East and Latin West had already been widened
by the political scission of the Roman Empire in the 4th century and the Great Schism of 1054,[36][37]
[38]
 and would be eventually widened again by the Iron Curtain (1945–1991) before the enlargement
of the European Union towards Eastern Europe since 2004 onward.[39][40][relevant?]
Pan-European political thought truly emerged during the 19th century, inspired by the liberal ideas of
the French and American Revolutions after the demise of Napoléon's Empire (1804–1815). In the
decades following the outcomes of the Congress of Vienna,[41] ideals of European unity flourished
across the continent, especially in the writings of Wojciech Jastrzębowski (1799–1882)
[42]
 or Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872).[43] The term United States of Europe (French: États-Unis
d'Europe) was used at that time by Victor Hugo (1802–1885) during a speech at the International
Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849:
A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood ... A day will
come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to
face, reaching out for each other across the seas.[44]
During the interwar period, the consciousness that national markets in Europe were interdependent
though confrontational, along with the observation of a larger and growing US market on the other
side of the ocean, nourished the urge for the economic integration of the continent.[45] In 1920,
advocating the creation of a European economic union, British economist John Maynard
Keynes wrote that "a Free Trade Union should be established ... to impose no protectionist tariffs
whatever against the produce of other members of the Union."[46] During the same decade, Richard
von Coudenhove-Kalergi, one of the first to imagine of a modern political union of Europe, founded
the Pan-Europa Movement.[47] His ideas influenced his contemporaries, among whom was then-
Prime Minister of France Aristide Briand. In 1929, the latter gave a speech in favour of a European
Union before the assembly of the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations.[48] In a radio
address in March 1943, with war still raging, Britain's leader Sir Winston Churchill spoke warmly of
"restoring the true greatness of Europe" once victory had been achieved, and mused on the post-
war creation of a "Council of Europe" which would bring the European nations together to build
peace.[49][50]