Discuss the history behind the EU. What are some interesting things you learned from this lecture?
Although the history of European unity traces back to the Roman Empire, the first traces of governmental organization originated some years after World War II. After the catastrophe, there seemed to be a necessity for a communal organization to stop internal warfare amongst European states. The first few economic organizations set the base for the supranational organization that came to be in in the 1990s. Having added its most recent member in 2007, and still having to consider 5 candidate states, it is safe to say the EU is a developing organization.
Of all the treaties, the Maastricht Treaty (1992) set up the rule of law and laid out a single European identity. Now a 27 member Union is formed by a common defense and economic policy. It is evident that each member country has slowly lost their sovereignty; however, the UK still uses their own currency, the pound.
Prior to this lecture I did not know that the EU started as the European Coal and Steel Community, or the different organizations developed prior to the EU.
Reading OECD
This paper discusses challenges for European Transition Countries. What challenges did they discuss? The paper is older, do you think the challenges identified were correct? Do they still exist? Are there others?
After the break of the Soviet Union, the ten Central and Eastern European countries had fundamental challenges to rise as independent countries. “Developing democratic political systems and institutions, achieving economic stabilization, and enduring social stability” (1), were amongst the first challenges these countries faces when presented with sovereignty.
In this context the CEECs faced transitional barriers to a market based agro-food sector as well. These include: “lack of access to credit