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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

World's Largest Economy ; The European Union


The European Union, EU, is now a very strong economic force around the globe, with its collective economy larger than that of United States or Japan.

Economic Community
It is an organization of nations formed to promote the free movement of resources and products among its members and to create common economic policies.

Brief History of EU
It was formed in 1957 by six countries- France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The objective was to conduct commerce freely among these nations.
More nations joined the EU since that time.

Denmark, Ireland and United Kingdom joined in 1973. Norway didn't join because of its referendum reject, and it remained outside. In 1980s, Greece, Spain and Portugal joined. Austria, Spain and Finland joined in 1995.
The fifteen nations of EU became the EU25 on May 1, 2004 as Cyrus, Malta, and eight Eastern European countries became new members. Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007, and Turkey and the Balkan countries may follow later. EU is now the world's largest and greatest economic force with 27 countries in total.

Euro
Since January 2002, 12 member nations of the EU are participating in the new common currency, the euro. The euro is the single currency of the European Monetary Union nations. But, three EU members, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, still keep their own currencies.

27 - EU countries

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Cyprus
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Hungary
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Luxembourg
  • Malta
  • Netherlands
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom

The EU is truly the most amazing economic force now. The future of EU will be much more better than the current situation. Other economy communities such as NAFTA, CAFTA, ASEAN, etc are not as effective as the EU. Now, the United States is trying to fix its NAFTA agreement. Later on, there will be much more strong economic force like EU. However, EU is currently leading in the place as world's largest economy, and will be in that place for more decades.

Ref: 9th addition, BUSINESS, Pride. Hughes, Kapoor

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