What is the European Union

The European Union (EU) is a group of 27 European countries which have formed a ‘union’ to make it easier to trade between their countries and to work together for ‘peace and prosperity’. It may be easier to think of this as a ‘club’ whose members have agreed that some decisions should be taken by the club and not the individual members. The original union had only six members and was created in 1957. Since then, membership has increased and many new European laws have been introduced which have changed the focus of the union and the way in which it works in order to achieve a real area of peace and prosperity.

With all of these countries trying to work together their system for making decisions is a bit more complicated than in your national government. There are three institutions which make the decisions for the European Union are:

• the European Commission
• the European Council
• the European Parliament

The decisions taken by the EU directly affect the 94 million children living in the European Union but also hundreds of millions of children living outside of Europe. The EU gives over half of all the development aid – this is money given from developed countries to countries in development to support health and education and other needs, in the world. The EU also takes decisions on global issues like climate change that impact on the lives and the futures of children around the world. Children should therefore have a say in how these decisions are taken. This campaign is one chance to make your voice heard!

European countries:

European Commission:

This organisation acts on behalf of all the countries in the European Union. It is independent of national governments. It proposes laws, policies, action plans and strategies. It manages the day-to-day business of carrying out EU policies and spending EU money. The Commission also keeps watch to see that everyone obeys the European treaties and laws. It can act against those who break the rules, taking them to the European Court of Justice if necessary.

European Council:

All the heads of government of each country in the EU meet four times a year to take joint decisions. Between these meetings there are also many other meetings at different levels of government to agree on different joint policies e.g. agriculture, justice, foreign policy. Since January 2010 there is a permanent president of the European Union who holds the position for two and a half year. The current president is Herman Van Rompuy.

European Parliament:

The Parliament is directly elected by European citizens in their own country. The number of parliamentarians that a country can elect depends on the amount of people who live in that country, so big countries will elect more members for the European Parliament, as we want to be sure that everyone in the European Union is fairly represented. A new Parliament was elected in June 2009 with a five year mandate. It is their job to monitor that the decisions that are made by the European Council and European Commission, are taken democratically. The Parliament discusses and gives its advice on proposed new laws and gets to co-decide about the budget of the Union, and about the new countries who want to join the Union.

European External Action Service:

The European External Action Service (EEAS) is one of the newest institutions in the European Union. It was formally launched on 1 December 2010 and it serves as the foreign ministry for the EU. The EEAS is lead by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the UK’s Baroness Catherine Ashton. It manages the EU’s response to crises and cooperates with the European Commission in areas which it shares competence with. The EEAS manages general foreign relations, security and defence policies and controls the Joint Situation Centre, the intelligence service of the EU. However, although the High Representative and the EEAS can prepare initiatives, member states are the ones making the final decision. The EEAS will have officials dedicated to all the countries and regional organisations in the world, and specialised units for democracy, human rights and defence.