The EU, what you need to know

I am a strong supporter of the EU and believe UK should be a totally involved member. There are currently 28 nations in the EU which is an economic and political partnership. The EU is based on treaties that UK has signed, with some "opt out" clauses.

Boarders have been removed between EU states and people can travel freely though out most of the continent - EXCEPT UK as we are not signed up to this agreement, so you have to show your passport when you come in! This EU freedom however makes it easy for anyone to live and work anywhere in the EU.

The EU has a single "internal market" for goods, services, money and people to move freely - EXCEPT UK where there are restrictions and some people want to have more limits.

The EU promotes human rights, and at least here the UK is signed up, although there are many voices of dissent... Human rights means dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights - all brought together in the "Charter of Human Rights" signed under the treaty of Lisbon 2009 - to which UK is a signatory.

How it works

The EU is NOT a federal state (like USA). It is sovereign nations that mutually agree things. We pool some of our sovereignty to gain collective strength and world influence. Decisions are made by the European Parliament, elected by EU citizens and the European Council of members of national governments. The "civil service" of the EU is the European Commission who propose directives to harmonise the states, which must then be agreed by the EP & EC.

The European Commission is much maligned in UK, they DO NOT make laws, anything they propose has to be approved by the democratically elected EP & EC/C of ministers.

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These are the EU organisations - quite a lot of them, and we NEED to understand what they do!



I will not go into every one here, but the key ones are the EP - your voice, the EC & C your governments voices, and the EC - defining political directions. In addition there are the legal side, the C of J, the financial side, the ECB, and a bunch of others.

Decisions are made by

1 The European Parliament. That's why the elections in May 2014 are VERY important, we need to send our best people to the EP. (in my opinion we should not have to elect separate MPs and MEPs, but simply send some of our MP to Europe!!! Having separate MPs just causes power struggles)

The EP consists of:



Grouped by politics like this:



2. The European Council (headed by Van Rompuy, to be replaced this year...). All of our heads of state - i.e. Mr Cameron etc - determining political direction and priorities.

3. The Council. Government representatives. Day to day negotiations.

4. The European Commission (headed by Jose Manuel Borroso, to be replaced this year). Representing the EU as a whole, and keeping things harmonised and on track, proposing new laws. They do NOT adopt the laws, 1 & 3 do.

The law making process works like this:



Key points are

1. Laws (regulations, directives, decisions or recommendations) are drafted under provisions of treaties, and the form of words comes from the EC.

2. The EP amends these.

3. The Council (of our governments members) also approves

Or it all goes round and round until agreement is reached. Agreement can be in two ways: unanimous vote required or what is called "qualified majority" which means by most governments. Our UK parliament gets the proposed laws in draft form for debate before decisions to support or ask for changes.



You can have your say!!! If 1 million EU citizens from 1/4 of states agree then they can bring forward a law for the EC to consider. Need to get going on Facebook!!!

The euro (lower case please).

The euro has been a mess, mostly because the states that adopted it did NOT follow the rules. Almost every euro state broke the fundamental rules that would have stabilised the currency. And the banks dived in to promote this law breaking for their own profit ends. So the result is a great imbalance and great debts for some countries. These guys use the euro:



There is also quite a lot of corruption in the EU and billions of euro go missing every year. No one seems to be doing very much about this, as it is in every government's interest to get the money!

There is an EU Investment Bank (AAA rated) which sells bonds and invests in EU projects - to the tune of €52bn in 2012, €45 of which was spent in EU countries. This provide money for local small businesses and major development projects (like HS2...).



If you want to know more about the EU look here.