As European Union leaders meet in Brussels, here's a handy guide to ten potential areas of confusion that can slip into any Euro story:
There are 27 EU member countries, but only 17 Eurozone countries, with the Euro as their currency.
There are also six so-called Candidate Countries, officially applying for EU membership (Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey).
The biggest addition to the club was in 2004 when 10 countries joined, mostly from central and eastern Europe. The UK joined in 1973.
From 1957, it was the European Economic Community (EEC), established by the Treaty of Rome – also known as the Common Market.
But that was just one of the European Communities, along with the European Coal & Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty brought them together as the European Union (EU). Confusingly, as part of the process the EEC component of the new body lost its middle ‘E’ to become the European Community (EC).
With the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, the name European Community was dropped, leaving the European Union.
It’s easily confused with the EU Council (or the Council of the European Union). The EU Council is made up of ministers from each country. Together with the European Parliament, the EU Council passes EU laws and agrees the EU budget and foreign and defence policies.
But that’s not all: there’s also the Council of Europe based in Strasbourg, which is not an EU institution at all. It was started in 1947 and deals with the European Convention on Human Rights, which it drafted.
The Council of Europe promotes “human rights, democracy and the rule of law” among its 47 member countries - virtually the whole continent, including Switzerland, Turkey and the Russian Federation.
There’s the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg which settles legal disputes between EU governments and institutions and interprets EU law across all EU countries.
Then there’s the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, a non-EU institution funded by the Council of Europe which rules on alleged violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.
- President Van Rompuy, Herman Van Rompuy, heads the European Council (see above)
- President Schultz, Martin Schultz, is President of the European Parliament
- President Barroso, José Manuel Barroso, is President of the European Commission, the EU’s civil service based in Brussels.
- President Draghi, Mario Draghi, is President of the European Central Bank (see below)
(Incidentally, if you suspect all that moving around is a bit extravagant, the Parliament doesn’t do itself any favours: its own website states that its budget “amounts to €1,686bn”. That’s within range of the UK’s entire gross domestic product of £1,500bn. I think it meant €1.686bn or €1,686m. The BBC got it right last year.)
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is funded by EU countries. Last year it put the vast majority of its €61bn funding into projects inside the EU in support of EU policy objectives such as reducing social imbalances and helping disadvantaged regions.
The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) provides financing for projects around the world along with private investors, to support global development aims. Based in London, it is a European Union initiative but a partnership between 63 countries as well as the EU and European Investment Bank.
The 27 European Commissioners, one appointed from each EU country, serve five-year terms as the political leadership of the European Commission. The Commission drafts and implements EU laws and manages the EU budget.
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) also serve five-year terms but are directly elected. Seventy-three of the 754 MEPs represent the UK. In the European Parliament they are grouped by political affinity rather than nationality.
There are no border checks when travelling between Schengen countries. But people who live in the non-Shengen EU countries still have the right to travel, work and live in any other EU country.
No: today’s flag, with all 12 stars, was originally used by the Council of Europe in 1955. The Council encouraged other emerging institutions to adopt it. According to the EU, the stars “symbolise the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe”. So what do the other nine represent?
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