The European Union essentially began its life with the Treaty of Rome in 1958 as European leaders
Context:
The European Union essentially began its life with the Treaty of Rome in 1958 as European leaders wanted to prevent a repeat of the two world wars by giving European nations shared economic and political institutions. This gave way to the European Economic Community in 1967 and ultimately the European Union after the 1991 Maastricht Treaty. Today the EU includes a political and economic bureaucracy, based in Brussels that shapes and controls many aspects of European political life. The EU has its own currency, the euro. It has travel arrangements called Schengen, which allows free travel and migration within the EU.
However, the dream of a “United States of Europe” is still quite far from reality. The EU cannot declare war and does not have independent power to levy taxes. Most people in Europe feel greater loyalty towards their home countries than they do to the European Union as a whole. This lack of continent-wide political solidarity has led many EU citizens to be resentful of the degree of control Brussel wields over their lives. This makes the current European equilibrium inherently unstable. If Europe doesn’t become more integrated there is a danger that nationalistic tensions could cause the whole system to unravel.
Britain has since voted to exit from the EU, this will be disruptive but not disastrous for other EU countries. The larger threat for the EU is that other countries may lose confidence and consider exiting as well.
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