Life in the European Union

Citizenship

Main article: Citizenship of the European Union

The Maastricht Treaty introduced the concept of citizenship of the European Union.

This citizenship flows from national citizenship — one holds the nationality of an EU member state and as a result becomes a "citizen of the Union" in addition.

EU citizenship offers certain rights and privileges within the EU; in many areas EU citizens have the same or similar rights as native citizens in member states. Such rights granted to EU citizens include:

• the right of abode
• the right to vote and the right to stand in local and European elections
• the right to apply to work in any position (including national civil services with the exception of sensitive positions such as defence).

EU member states also use a common passport design, burgundy coloured with the name of the member state, national seal and the title "European Union" (or its translation).

Union citizenship continues to gain in status and the European Court of Justice has stated that Union citizenship will be the "fundamental status of nationals of Member States" (see Case C-184/99 Rudy Grzelczyk v Centre Public d'Aide Sociale d'Ottignes-Louvain-la-Neuve, [2001] ECR I-6193, para 31). The European Commission has affirmed that Union citizenship should be the fundamental status of EU nationals.

Cultural policies of the European Union

Main article: Cultural policies of the European Union

Cultural cooperation in the European Union has become a community competency since its inclusion in 1992 in the Maastricht Treaty.

Actions taken in the cultural area by the European Union include:

• The Culture 2000 7-year program.
• the European Capital of Culture program
• the European Cultural Month event
• the Media Plus program
• experimental actions and the awarding of various grants.

The European Union gave grants to 233 cultural projects in 2004.

The European Union has also launched a webportal dedicated to Europe and Culture, responding to the European Council's expressed desire to see the Commission and the member states "promote the networking of cultural information to enable all citizens to access European cultural content by the most advanced technological means."

Economy

Main articles: Economy of the European Union, Euro

If the European Union is regarded as a single economy, which it it usually is not, it has the largest economy in the World. The EU set itself an objective under the Lisbon Strategy to make the European Union "the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by the year 2010.

The most widely used currency in the European Union is the Euro, which is in use in 12 member states. All other member states, apart from Denmark and the United Kingdom which have special opt-outs, have committed to changing over to the Euro once they have fulfilled the requirements needed to do so. The Stability and Growth Pact sets out the fiscal criteria to maintain for stability and convergence, but it has been breached by several members.

Educational policies of the European Union

Main article: Educational policies of the European Union

EU-funded educational, vocational and citizenship-building programmes help more than 100,000 EU citizens each year take advantage of opportunities which the EU offers its citizens to live, study and work in other countries. These opportunities make a major contribution to cross-cultural understanding, personal development and the realisation of the EU’s full economic potential. EU-backed improvements in national education and training quality and compatibility between educational and vocational training systems facilitate individual mobility and are important for jobs and growth.

According to Art. 149 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Community "shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States", through a wide range of actions, such as promoting the mobility of citizens, designing joint study programmes, establishing networks, exchanging information or teaching languages of the European Union. The Treaty also contains a commitment to promote life-long learning for all citizens of the Union. Therefore, the Community has a complementary role to play: to add a European dimension to education, to help to develop quality education and to encourage life-long learning. All the recent European summits (from Lisbon 2000 on) underlined the contribution of education in setting up the "European knowledge society".

The European Union has recently worked on various harmonisation projects including the Bologna Process.

The purpose of the Bologna process is to create the European higher education area by harmonising academic degree standards and quality assurance standards throughout Europe.

Languages

Main article: Languages of the European Union

The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union.

They include the 21 official languages of the European Union plus many others.

EU policy is to encourage all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. The reason for this is not only to promote easier communication between Europeans, but also to encourage greater tolerance and respect for diversity.

A number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity. The content of educational systems remains the responsibility of individual Member States. Further information can be found at Language Policy.

Politics

Main article: Politics of the European Union

The European Union or EU is a supranational union of 25 European states. It has many activities, the most important being a common single market, consisting of a customs union, a single currency (adopted by 12 out of 25 member states), a Common Agricultural Policy and a Common Fisheries Policy. The European Union also has various initiatives to co-ordinate activities of the member states.

The EU, considered as a unit, has the largest economy in the world, with a 2002 GDP of 9.613 trillion Euro . The EU economy is expected to grow further over the next decade as more former communist countries join the union. There is also a trend of moving towards increased cooperation in terms of common defence and foreign policy.

The union has evolved over time from a primarily economic union to an increasingly political one. This trend is highlighted by the increasing number of policy areas that fall within EU competence: political power has tended to shift upwards from the Member States to the EU.