The European Union was founded on November 1, 1993 by several great minds. Among others, it’s most notable founders are that of Winston Churchill and Jean Monnet. The European Union has allowed us to live in peace and have the stability that we have today. All of its leaders had the same vision in mind when they created ideals of the European Union which is simply a peaceful, prosperous Europe. Most of the structure of the European Union has been founded upon many treaties and has undergone many expansions that have taken it from only six states to now 28 states. The main idea behind the European Union is that the thought of war in Europe should be nearly impossible because of the EU. One of the leading principals of the European Union came from the European Coal and Steel Community in the Treaty of Paris which followed the Schuman Declaration and which later lead to the Treaties of Rome which helped create The European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. Both have been incorporated into the European Union. After World War II there was so much damage across Europe because of the horrific Holocaust and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that many of the European leaders knew that something like this could never happen again. To make sure that Germany could never threaten the peace of the world like they did ever again much of Germany’s heavy industry was dismantled and the main coal mining regions were taken from Germany and put under international control. Soon after Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Treaty of Paris which in turn created the European Coal and Steel Community. Throughout the 1960’s there was problems with France and how they wanted to limit supranational power and did not want to join the United Kingdom. In 1965 luckily they came to an agreement and signed the Merger Treaty and this created the European Communities. In 1993 under the 3rd Delors Commission, the Maastricht Treaty became effective which created the European Union. The EU was not always as big as it has always been it originally just had Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Now they had finally set up a peaceful union they needed to figure out who would be involved in the Union over many years. As of today there are 28 members to the EU including: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and The United Kingdom. There are seven more countries that would like to join the EU because of all of the benefits that comes from being a member. The countries are: Bosnia, Iceland, Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. All of these countries are either now candidates or attempting to become candidates in the near future as long as they meet the criteria such as complying with all the EU standards and rules, having consent of the EU institutions and EU member states, and finally having consent of their citizens. They must also be willing to promote the ideal of the EU in order to be allowed in. A few of the ideals is a stable guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities. They must have a functioning economy and must also be