The European Union - Significant Events Timeline

World War II brought much ruin and loss to Europe, and when it ended, nobody wanted to see anything like it happen again. It was at this time that a group of Europe's leaders decided that in order to prevent war amongst one another's countries from happening, they needed to bring their countries together. To do this, they decided to integrate their coal and steel policies on both economic and political levels. This lead to the ECSC, which in turn, eventually led to the EU. World War II was a catalyst for action towards European union.

The ECSC was formed with the goal of bringing together its member countries economically and politically by means of merging their coal and steel industries. It thereby began the movement of brining integration and union between European countries that eventually became the foundation from which the EU was, and continues to be, formed upon. The ECSC can therefore be seen as the beginning of the EU's history.

The treaties of Rome were signed by the 6 member countries of the ECSC. By signing these treaties the EURATOM and the EEC were formed. These two new "communities" greatly expanded the economic integration, that had been started by the ECSC, of these countries. These country's economies were now joined in most areas, not only by their coal and steel policies. This was important to the development of the EU because by bringing these countries economies together in new ways, it cleared the way for the EU to integrate Europe in other new ways, economic and otherwise. Furthermore, the signing of The Treaties of Rome led to activities, such as the opening up of the trade market between these 6 countries, that later became important job carried out by the EU across Europe.

When the ECSC, EEC, and FURATOM merge together, they become one in the same. They are no longer independently run, there is a single governing body for them all. As the EU is a single union itself, this makes this merger more like the EU than ever before. Furthermore, this consolidation of the 3 former "communities" eventually turns into the EU itself.

This was the first of many enlargements of the "community" merger/the EU. After this, goals of union and integration amongst member counties applied to more than just the original 6, thereby marking the start of what would eventually grow to apply to encompassing most countries in Europe. Furthermore, this marks the start of the issues and benefits associated with EU enlargement.

Now all citizens of EU member countries had a vote in who represented them in the EP. This changed the EU because now its legislative body represented more of "the people", and since every EU citizen had the ability to vote, it made the EU truly democratic.

The Treaty of Maastricht was what created the EU. It laid out some important new aims for the member countries, such as integrating their security and foreign policies, as well as kept goals already established by the ECSC, EEC, and FURATOM, such as further integrating their economies ("Treaty of Maastricht on European Union"). Furthermore, this treaty changed the structure of the EU by organizing it into the "three pillars" - the community pillar, the foreign and security pillar, and the pillar of police and judicial cooperation ("Pillars of the European Union"). The Treaty of Maastricht was the official start of the EU.

By creating a common currency that was adopted by most of its member countries, the EU made interactions between these countries simpler than ever. It also made Europe much more economically integrated, especially as time went on and more countries adopted the currency.

In 2004, the EU gained 10 new member countries.This was by far the EU's largest-ever expansion and in it the EU gained many Eastern European members. This meant the EU growing in many ways, amongst them power, resources, size, number of obstacles/issues, ect. The repercussions of this growth significantly changed what issues the EU focused/focuses on. An example of this is that after the "Big Bang" the EU had to consider reforming some of its old policies that worked best back when it had a smaller number of member countries.

The Treaty of Lisbon modified the rules originally laid out by The Treaty of Maastricht, making them better fit to deal with the issues that Europe/the world is facing today and better fit to deal with the larger size of the EU ("Taking Europe into the 21st Century"). The Treaty of Lisbon changed the structure of the EU so that ultimately it became more democratic and better able to accomplish its goals ("Taking Europe into the 21st Century").