The European Union's Separation (Essay Sample)

The European Union's Separation Name Institution The European Union's Separation European countries are united and brought together under one umbrella of an organization known as the European Union. European Union permits an environment for contextual assessment of member states in protecting and enforcing the human rights. Besides, European Union is one of the international organization with a distinctive institutional make-up since member states have a set of common organizations from which delegation of some of the sovereignty provide a better management. The delegation of the sovereignty allows critical decisions on particular issues of co-operating interest to be made democratically at European organization level. As a result, the pooling of state powers towards building a better European stage is also called European integration (Wilson, 2016). In line with the Maastricht Treaty, the principal objective of forming this prospect organization was to bring an ever-closer union of European states and their citizens. The idea of the European Union formation was first thought by French Prime Minister Robert Schuman during his speech during a summit in 1950, immediately after the consequences of World War II. The birth of the integration saw pooling of coal and steel manufacture, followed by a proposal for the foundation of all military power as a preliminary phase towards building a solid base for European Federation (Simms, 2016). Consequently, Europeans all over the globe celebrate 9th of May every year as ‘European Day'. The knowledge behind Schuman's inception of EU formation was that if states could share resources and rely on one another for principal raw materials they were likely to prevent the occurrence of another world war. Later, in 1951 the idea of EU formation phase began through the founding of European Coal and Steel Community. At earliest stage, the union had six founding member states under the name European Coal and Steel Community. These prominent members of the Community were Belgium, Italy, Luxemburg, France, West Germany and the Netherlands. In 1957, the six member states signed an agreement in Rome, establishing the European Economic Community. The Community permitted establishment of a common market among the nation members allowing smooth transaction of goods and services between them. In 1973 the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark accepted to join the European Economic Community. Later, many European states showed interest in joining the Community, subsequently increasing the number of members. There were more enlargements of the Union in the years 1981, 1986, 1995, 2004 and 2007. Currently, the membership of the European Union stands at 27 nations with an average population of 490 million people. Furthermore, there are still around five states who have the credits of candidate status, but they are still engaged in the negotiation process of their accession to membership to the Union. These candidate nations are Iceland, Montenegro, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia and Turkey, with Croatia and Iceland showing a high probability of joining the Union soon. The Union operations and cooperation with other member states lie on the principles of the rule of law. Besides, all of the decisions and processes of EU lies on the Treaties constituting the legal basis and which are agreeable by all member nations. The 1951, Treaty of Paris formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which came into force in July 1952 having a validity period of 50 years and expiring in July 2002. Treaty of Rome signed in 1957, established the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community. In 1986, Single European Act (SEA) incorperated the opening for the fresh push for the establishment of a European internal market which at the initial stages was a complicated process to realize. In 1992, the signing of Maastricht Treaty took place, this step moved the EU a distance from just an organization formed for economic reasons, to greater heights of political joint for the betterment of Europe. In June 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam was a vindicating treaty that revised the already existing constitutive European agreements. The treaty of Nice signed in 2000, prepared the Union for future growth regarding membership and enlargement of the EU. Nevertheless, the passing of the treaty had consequences to the union in four main stages which saw size and composition of the European Commission change, adjustment of the number of votes for each member state. Also, introduced the extension for qualification of majority voting on more public policy capacities during the meetings of the organization. The system proposed, permitted the membership of the European integration to increase membership to around 27 members. Finally, in 2009 the Lisbon Treaty revised the agreements on the European Union as well as European Community, thus re-naming the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. According to the Commission of European Union, the Lisbon Treaty brought four principle impacts to the Union. These key effects include establishing a more democratic, accountable and transparent European front with a strong European Union Parliament as well as national parliaments. Secondly, creating a more self-proficient and an active Europe based on simpler working procedures and rules of voting. Thirdly, building a Europe that respects the Union's virtues such as rights, freedom, and values solidarity as well as the security of their citizens. Lastly, establish a Europe that is on the front to fight on the global stage by bringing together external policy instruments especially when deciding and implementing the new Union's strategies. In spite of all the privileges the nation members and their citizens are enjoying since establishment of the Union, there exists an inherent difference and an ever-growing pressure for over a long period of time. Furthermore, European citizens have publicly inclined towards EU, with most of them enjoying the freedom of traveling from one nation to another without encountering travel bans, and able to work and live anywhere throughout Europe. The persistent tension in the Union is because of the concern over the economic growth of individual member states. Also, there is a division between some member states who seek to have an "ever closer union" by establishing greater assimilation. While the other front supports having the Union on a more intergovernmental stage so that they can better protect their state sovereignty (Hawking et al. 2016). Hence, some members have withdrawn their membership on various aspects of the incorporation, such as the Eurozone and the Schengen zone. Moreover, the diversification regarding the state histories and the geography has intensified the tension in the Union. These diversifications among member states regularly influence the member country's strategy preferences when it comes to important decision making regarding a policy. The widening of the European Union zone to include the East nations has resulted into bad memories and worries to some member countries concerning the current Soviet domination, fearing the ties of EU and Russia. Meanwhile, European Union member states bordering the Mediterranean region may have shown more political and economic concern in North Africa countries such as Egypt, Tunisia than the members located away from North African belt. Whereas the European Union holds that the ‘widening door' remains open for any European country that prove to have satisfied the political and the economic measures for membership approval. However, some member nations, European leaders as well as the public show worry over the complications that are likely to arise from expansion strategy on the organizational finances, capacities as well as its general identity. The implications are precise on the large, culturally diverse states such as Turkey or less developed nations of ‘enlarged Europe' such as Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Georgia harboring EU ambitions in the long term. Likewise, some political scientist suggests that if EU considerably widens more to include an extensive collection of nations, to continue with integration in the economic and financial arena may become difficult to achieve. In addition, creating a common foreign policy would almost be impossible, because its enlargement is nearly reaching its maximum, both zonal and regarding national eagerness for further expansion. Several political and economic factors are contributing to the separation of some member states from the EU and the improbability surrounding the prospect of the Union's projects. For instance, the global financial catastrophe marked the beginning of debt crisis in the Union's operations consequently, affecting the European economies and reducing growth level while increasing unemployment level in many member states. The global crisis saw the value of pound and euros falling in the forex market and initiating a threat to the European banking system. The economic disparities among the member states have generated feuds and pressure, therefore, resulting into policy disunions and lack of sufficient cooperation. There is an on-going debate concerning the future and relationship between UK and EU. In January 2013 the Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron promised in future the Conservative government will hold a referendum after negotiation on the position of UK regarding his relationship with the EU (Gatehouse, 2016). The phenomenon of the UK exit from cooperation with the EU is also known as the Brexit The UK were opting to quit their membership with EU as they believed being alone would make them free to make their decisions concerning important matters affecting their countries. The consequences of UK exit from the European U...