Since most of you are probably from European countries, it is likely that you heard of The
Economic Union of Coal and Steel, which became the European Union some decades ago.
Now we have a melting pot full of countries and cultures gathered in some buildings located
in the biggest cities of the union, making decisions that will affect most of the European
countries, but why? How did we end up here?
Well, this thing started after World War 2, when most of the continent was mowed down to
the ground, when suddenly the biggest countries in Europe found out that a war is not worth it and that they somehow need to keep France and Germany on the same side.
So Jean Monnet, with the help of another French guy and a German came up with the union
mentioned before, which, with the help of even bigger names in the European political
theater like Winston Churchil became what we have today.
Today we have a lot of institutions that have a lot of responsibilities, but do not worry, we
have to understand only 4 of them in order to describe what we have today.
The most important one in the European Parliament, which comes up and approves most of
the laws in the EU. From the budget of some initiative to anything you can imagine. Basically they are the reason we have DiscoveryEu and no more plastic straws. Also, they are directly elected by the citizens of the eu.
The next one of the list in the European Council which is made by the heads of EU states
and has to define the general political direction and priorities of the European Union.
Then we have The Council of EU, which is made out of the so called “ council of ministers' '
which is an assembly made out of the government of each EU state. They take decisions on
European laws jointly with the European Parliament.
And in the end we have the European Commission. And yes, the brilliant minds at the time
named each institution in this way. Anyway, this is a combination of institutions which have
very different responsibilities which is why this is typically referred to as the executive branch of the EU. So basically the ones mentioned above decide something and this thing does whatever it was decided.
And do not worry, they have lots of “ unofficial duties “ as well like answering the phone, and believe, even though that sounds like nothing, it is really challenging sometimes since their phones will ring constantly for at least 10 hours straight, so I will talk about those ones as well in another article.
Bye!
Bibliography
-of-the-european-union-1-4/
tions-and-bodies_en
n-group-calls-for-a-paradigm-shift/
yn-and-partners
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