The EU has grown steadily from its six founding members to 28 countries.
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed up to the
EEC, or Common Market in 1957. Britain, Ireland and Denmark joined in the first
wave of expansion in 1973, followed by Greece in 1981 and Portugal and Spain
five years later. Eastern Germany joined after unification and Austria, Finland
and Sweden became part of the EU in 1995. The biggest enlargement came in 2004
when 10 new member countries joined. Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007 and
Croatia was latest to sign up in 2013. The EEC started out as a trading bloc - with free movement of goods and
services within the Common Market - now its interests include reducing regional
inequalities, preserving the environment, promoting human rights and investing
in education and research.
The EU is Britain's biggest trading partner. British citizens are free to
work in any EU country and EU funding is spent on supporting farmers, boosting
jobs in the UK, redeveloping rundown areas, and grants for university research.
The EU has contributed to cheaper travel by challenging monopolies and boosting
competition. It has reduced the cost of mobile data roaming and set water
quality standards in Europe. But giving subsidies to farmers led to over-supply of some crops and so the
EU was forced to rethink its agriculture policy. Critics say the EU has taken too
much power from the member governments, its regulations are costly to the members
economy and without them, Countries like Britain would be able to sign other trade deals with
growing economies like China and India. They also say that the EU wastes
taxpayers’ money on excessive bureaucracy - citing MEPs monthly trips to
Strasbourg which cost 180m euros (£136m) per year.
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