European Union
European Union
| |
|---|---|
 | |
| Motto: "In Varietate Concordia" (Latin) "United in Diversity" | |
| Anthem: "European Anthem" | |
| |
| Capital | Brussels (de facto)[1] |
| Institutional seats |
|
| Largest metropolis | Paris |
| Official languages | 24 languages |
| Official scripts | |
| Religion (2021)[2] |
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| Demonym | European |
| Type | Supranational union |
| Membership | |
| Government | Mixed supranational and intergovernmental directorial parliamentary confederation |
| António Costa | |
| Ursula von der Leyen | |
| Ireland[3] | |
| Roberta Metsola | |
| Legislature | European Parliament • Council of the European Union |
| Formation[4] | |
| 23 July 1952 | |
| 1 January 1958 | |
| 1 July 1987 | |
| 1 November 1993 | |
| 1 December 2009 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 4,225,104 km2 (1,631,322 sq mi) (incl. outermost regions)[5] |
• Water (%) | 2.93 |
| Population | |
• 2026 estimate |  451,990,314[6] |
• 2021 census | 443,883,877[7] |
• Density | 106.7/km2 (276.4/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2026 estimate |
• Total |  $30.678 trillion[8] |
• Per capita | $67,957[8] |
| GDP (nominal) | 2026 estimate |
• Total | $23.035 trillion[8] |
• Per capita | $51,027[b][8] |
| Gini (2024) |  29.3[9]low inequality |
| Currency | Euro (€) (EUR) Others
|
| Time zone | UTC to UTC+2 (WET, CET, EET) |
| UTC+1 to UTC+3 (WEST, CEST, EEST) | |
| (see also Summer time in Europe)[c] | |
| Internet TLD | .eu, .ευ, .ею[d] |
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe.[10][11] A supranational union with a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated population of just under 452 million as of 2026,[6] its member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €18.802 trillion in 2025, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output.[12] The EU is often described as a sui generis political entity combining characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.[13][14]
Its cornerstone, the Customs Union, paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation 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;[15] enact legislation in justice and home affairs; and maintain common policies on trade,[16] agriculture,[17] fisheries, and regional development.[18]
Passport controls have been abolished for travel within the Schengen Area.[19] The eurozone is a group composed of the 21 EU member states that have fully implemented the EU's economic and monetary union and use the euro currency. 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. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The EU was established, along with its citizenship, when the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993. The Union later acquired a single, explicit international legal personality with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009.[20][21] Its beginnings can be traced to the Inner Six states (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany) at the start of modern European integration in 1948, and to the Western Union, the International Authority for the Ruhr, the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, which were established by treaties. These increasingly amalgamated bodies grew, with their legal successor, the EU, both in size through the accessions of a further 22 states from 1973 to 2013, and in power through acquisitions of policy areas. In 2020, the United Kingdom became the only member state to leave the EU; ten countries are aspiring or negotiating to join it.
History
Background: World Wars and aftermath
Internationalism and visions of European unity had existed since well before the 19th century, but gained particularly as a reaction to World War I and its aftermath. In this light the first advances for the idea of European integration were made. In 1920 John Maynard Keynes proposed a European customs union for the struggling post-war European economies,[22] and in 1923 the oldest organisation for European integration, the Paneuropean Union was founded, led by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who would later found in June 1947 the European Parliamentary Union (EPU). Aristide Briand—who was Prime Minister of France, a follower of the Paneuropean Union, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the Locarno Treaties—delivered a widely recognised speech at the League of Nations in Geneva on 5 September 1929 for a federal Europe to secure Europe and settle the historic Franco-German enmity.[23][24]
With large-scale war being waged in Europe once again in the 1930s and becoming World War II, the question of what to fight against and what for had to be agreed on. A first agreement was the Declaration of St James's Palace of 1941, when Europe's resistance gathered in London. This was expanded on by the 1941 Atlantic Charter, establishing the Allies and their common goals, inciting a new wave of global international institutions like the United Nations (founded 1945) or the Bretton Woods System (1944).[25]
In 1943 at the Moscow Conference and Tehran Conference, plans to establish joint institutions for a post-war world and Europe increasingly became a part of the agenda. This led to a decision at the Yalta Conference in 1944 to form a European Advisory Commission, later replaced by the Council of Foreign Ministers and the Allied Control Council, following the German surrender and the Potsdam Agreement in 1945.
By the end of the war, European integration became seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that had caused the war.[26] On 19 September 1946, in a much recognised speech, Winston Churchill, speaking at the University of Zürich, reiterated his calls since 1930 for a "European Union" and "Council of Europe", coincidentally[27] while the Hertenstein Congress of the Union of European Federalists,[28] one of the constituent members of the European Movement, was laying out its principles. One month later, the French Union was installed by the new Fourth French Republic to direct the decolonisation of its colonies so that they would become parts of a European community.[29]
By 1947, a growing rift between the western Allied Powers and the Soviet Union became evident as a result of the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election, which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement. March of that year saw two important developments. First was the signing of the Treaty of Dunkirk between France and the United Kingdom. The treaty assured mutual assistance in the event of future military aggression against either nation. Though it officially named Germany as a threat, in reality the actual concern was for the Soviet Union. A few days later came the announcement of the Truman Doctrine which pledged American support for democracies to counter the Soviets.
Initial years and the Paris Treaty (1948–1957)
Immediately following the February 1948 coup d'état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in the Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the Cold War. The year 1948 marked the beginning of the institutionalised modern