The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Its predecessor, the European Economic Community, was created in 1958, aimed to increase economic cooperation between six countries, namely Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. By 2020, it had become what it is known today, in which 27 members constituted the organization with the United Kingdom being the only nation state that had left the organization.

 

The predecessor of the EU was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. The very first steps were to foster economic cooperation: the idea being that countries that trade with one another become economically interdependent and so more likely to avoid conflict. The EU’s main economic engine is the single market which enables most goods, services, money and people to move freely and aims to develop this huge resource to other areas like energy, knowledge and capital markets to ensure that Europeans can draw the maximum benefit from it.