| EU/EMU ACCESSION |
22 December 2010
| EU background |
|
EU history
A historic path of today's European Union began in 1951 by the establishment of
the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) upon a proposal of Robert Schuman,
the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. The first Member States were France, the
Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The
primary aim was to prompt co-operation between France and Germany and thus to
diminish a threat of a new war. Co-operation proved as a good method of
overcoming mutual tensions, so that in 1957, the treaties establishing the
European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)
were signed in Rome, expanding thus co-operation to new fields. In 1967, the
ECSC, EEC and Euratom merged into the European Community (EC). In the following
year, the customs union was established on the territory of the EC. The
remaining customs duties on trade within the EC were abolished and a common
external tariff was introduced.
EU enlargement
The membership conditions, which must be fulfilled, are set before any country
wishing to join the European family. These conditions were determined at the
European Council meeting in Copenhagen in June 1993. The most important
conditions to be fulfilled by a candidate country include: functioning of the
institutions promoting human rights, protection of minorities, the rule of law
and democracy. In order to withstand competitive pressures after the EU
accession, a country must strengthen functioning of its own market economy and
prove the capacity to implement political, economic and monetary tasks imposed
by the EU membership.
Economic and Monetary Union
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is the name of the process of harmonisation of
economic and monetary policies of the EU Member States for the purpose of
introduction of the a common currency - the euro.
In the Dutch city Maastricht, the Treaty on European Union was signed in
February 1992, which set the conditions to be fulfilled by the Member States
wishing to join the Economic and Monetary Union. This Treaty envisaged the following three stages of introducing the euro: