THE EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union (EU) is a family of democratic European countries, committed to working together for peace and prosperity. It is not a State intended to replace existing states, but it is more than any other international organisation. The EU is, in fact, unique. Its Member States have set up common institutions to which they delegate some of their sovereignty so that decisions on specific matters of joint interest can be made democratically at European level.
The historical roots of the European Union lie in the Second World War. The idea of European integration was conceived to prevent such killing and destruction from ever happening again. It was first proposed by the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in a speech on 9 May 1950. This date, the "birthday" of what is now the EU, is celebrated annually as Europe Day.
There are five EU institutions, each playing a specific role:
* European Parliament (elected by the peoples of the Member States);
* Council of the European Union (representing the governments of the Member States);
* European Commission (driving force and executive body);
* Court of Justice (ensuring compliance with the law);
* Court of Auditors (controlling sound and lawful management of the EU budget).
These are flanked by five other important bodies:
* European Economic and Social Committee (expresses the opinions of organised civil society on economic and social issues);
* Committee of the Regions (expresses the opinions of regional and local authorities);
* European Central Bank (responsible for monetary policy and managing the euro);
* European Ombudsman (deals with citizens' complaints about maladministration by any EU institution or body);
* European Investment Bank (helps achieve EU objectives by financing investment projects);
A number of agencies and other bodies complete the system.
The rule of law is fundamental to the European Union. All EU decisions and procedures are based on the Treaties, which are agreed by all the EU countries.
Initially, the EU consisted of just six countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined in 1973, Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. In 2004 the biggest ever enlargement takes place with 10 new countries joining.
In the early years, much of the co-operation between EU countries was about trade and the economy, but now the EU also deals with many other subjects of direct importance for our everyday life, such as citizens' rights; ensuring freedom, security and justice; job creation; regional development; environmental protection; making globalisation work for everyone.
The European Union has delivered half a century of stability, peace and prosperity. It has helped to raise living standards, built a single Europe-wide market, launched the single European currency, the euro, and strengthened Europe's voice in the world.
Unity in diversity: Europe is a continent with many different traditions and languages, but also with shared values. The EU defends these values. It fosters co-operation among the peoples of Europe, promoting unity while preserving diversity and ensuring that decisions are taken as close as possible to the citizens.
In the increasingly interdependent world of the 21st ...
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The European Union has delivered half a century of stability, peace and prosperity. It has helped to raise living standards, built a single Europe-wide market, launched the single European currency, the euro, and strengthened Europe's voice in the world.
Unity in diversity: Europe is a continent with many different traditions and languages, but also with shared values. The EU defends these values. It fosters co-operation among the peoples of Europe, promoting unity while preserving diversity and ensuring that decisions are taken as close as possible to the citizens.
In the increasingly interdependent world of the 21st century, it will be even more necessary for every European citizen to co-operate with people from other countries in a spirit of curiosity, tolerance and solidarity.
THE CORE OF THE UNION
The single market is the core of today's Union. To make it happen, the EU institutions and the member countries strove doggedly for seven years from 1985 to draft and adopt the hundreds of directives needed to sweep away the technical, regulatory, legal, bureaucratic, cultural and protectionist barriers that stifled free trade and free movement within the Union. They won the race against time, but the victory passed largely unnoticed by the public. The single market never fired the popular imagination in the way the single currency, the other big event of the past decade, did. As the former European Commission president and instigator of the whole project, Jacques Delors, remarked: "you can't fall in love with the single market".
Lovable or not, the single market has, according to the Commission, created 2.5 million new jobs since 1993 and generated more than €800 billion in extra wealth. Helped by new technology, the opening of national EU markets has brought down the price of national telephone calls by 50% since 1998. Under pressure of competition, the prices of promotional airfares in Europe fell by 41% between 1992 and 2000. The removal of national restrictions has enabled more than 15 million Europeans to go to another EU country to work or spend their retirement.
When Delors launched his vast single market project in 1985 he knew just how much potential for growth ands jobs remained locked up behind national frontiers. Tariffs and quotas had been abolished at the end of the 1960s, but many technical and administrative obstacles to free trade still persisted.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
When these obstacles are removed and national markets opened, more firms can compete against each other. This means lower prices for the consumer - with the added bonus of a greater choice of goods and services. Firms selling in the single market know they have unrestricted access to more than 450 million consumers in the enlarged European Union - enabling them to achieve economies and efficiencies of scale, which translate in turn into lower prices. The single market also provided a useful springboard for European firms to expand into today's globalised markets.
The four freedoms of movement - for goods, services, people and capital - are underpinned by a range of supporting policies. Firms are prevented from fixing prices or carving up markets among them by the EU's robust anti-trust policy. People can move around more freely for work because member states recognise many of each other's academic and professional qualifications. Governments have agreed to take decisions affecting the single market by a system of majority voting rather than by unanimous agreement - which is much harder to achieve.
The creation of the single market gave European Union countries a stronger incentive to liberalise previously protected monopoly markets for utilities such as telecommunications, electricity, gas and water. The independent regulators who supervise the now-liberalised markets for telecoms and energy coordinate their activity at EU level.
SOME WAY TO GO
The undeniable successes of the single market must not blind us to its shortcomings. The services sector, for instance, has opened up more slowly than markets for goods. This is particularly the case for a wide range of financial services, and for transportation, where separate national markets still exist - especially for rail and air transport.
There is also a need to remove more red tape - those administrative and technical barriers to the free flow of goods and services. These include the reluctance of EU countries to accept each other's standards and norms or sometimes to recognise the equivalence of professional qualifications. The fragmented nature of national tax systems also puts a brake on market integration and efficiency.
The good news is that these dangers have been recognised by member states and the European Commission, and remedial action is under way, although not at a uniform speed and not in all sectors. For financial services, the EU is implementing an action plan to develop an integrated market by 2005. This will cut the cost of borrowing for firms and consumers and will offer savers a wider range of investment products - savings plans and pension schemes - available from the European supplier of their choice. According to the Commission, the action plan is on track for completion by 2005.
PROTECTING THE SINGLE MARKET
The single market relies chiefly on competition and regulatory authorities to maintain a level playing field for the free movement of goods and services. The free movement of people is guaranteed under the Schengen agreement (called after the small Luxembourg town where it was signed). This removes checks at most of the EU's internal frontiers, although the UK and Ireland do not participate, and strengthens controls at the EU's external borders, including international airports and seaports.
Protection at another level is required to prevent piracy and counterfeiting of genuine EU products. The European Commission estimates that pirates and counterfeiters cost the EU more than 17 000 jobs each year. This is why the Commission and the member states are working on extending copyright and patent protection.
Removing barriers to trade and free movement is a huge plus for those engaged in commerce or travel for legitimate reasons. But criminals of all sorts seek to turn the system to their advantage. The EU response to frontier-free crime has been to create a system of frontier-free police and criminal justice cooperation. Europol, the European police force, is part of that response. So is the Schengen Information System whereby national police exchange information on wanted or suspected wrongdoers. Under the Eurojust project, member states second senior prosecutors, policemen and lawyers to a central team working together to fight organised crime.
FUNDING
Most EU funding is not paid directly by the European Commission but via the national and regional authorities of the Member States. This is the case of payments under the Common Agricultural Policy and of most payments under the structural policy financial instruments (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance) which make up, in money terms, the great bulk of EU funding.
The Commission pays grants direct to beneficiaries (public or private bodies - universities, businesses, interest groups, NGOs - and, in some cases, individuals) in pursuance of other common policies in such fields as research and development, education, training, the environment, consumer protection, and information. It also pays direct grants in pursuance of EU external policies.
All EU funding is channelled towards precise objectives and priorities under the various common policies, which, in turn, are based on provisions of the Treaties.
Some of the grants paid directly are paid under programmes whose payment and other conditions are set out in a specific Council Regulation. Others, such as various pilot schemes and grants paid out of the Commission's administrative expenditure as an EU institution, are governed by the terms of a Vade-mecum on grant management, which came into force on 1 January 1999 and which seeks to establish common rules regarding applications, calculation of the amount of grants, and payment conditions, for all grants not governed by a specific Council Regulation.
In order to ensure that E.U. money is spent wisely, the Commission carries out each year a number of evaluation projects.
Evaluation of EU Budget
The European Union has a budget of over 90 billion Euros. The European Commission is responsible for ensuring it is spent wisely, that is, so as to achieve the objectives set, as fully as possible. Evaluation of Community policies and programmes is a tool which informs us of the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of our activities. It seeks to find out: 'Will we spend this wisely'? Are we spending this wisely'? 'Did we spend this wisely'?
We need this information to help improve future strategy. Therefore, the departments of the Commission carry out more than a hundred evaluation projects every year. Regular evaluation and systematic use of evaluation findings in the planning and prioritization of activities are the aims set out in the Commission's Communication.
