Talk:European Union/Archive07

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Currencies

Please explain how the Pound Sterling is a currency of the EU. Is it accepted across EU member states? Or by EU institutions as payment? Anything else is insufficient and misleading. The Pound (as much the other currencies named) is no more a currency of the EU than it is a currency of NATO. Please provide evidence to the contrary or remove the reference. JamesAVD 17:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

You do know that all of the currencies of the countries within the EU are in the currency entry of the infobox. Why did you only single out the pound when all the others are there too? Gdo01 17:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I do say 'as much as the other currencies named'. The infobox should reflect only the Euro as a currency of the EU or should make clear that the other currecncies are not official currencies of the EU as a whole. The box as it stands is incorrect or misleading. JamesAVD 11:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

All that can be said is that the Euro is the currency of the majority of pre-1994 member states, and that post-1994 members will adopt it under the terms of accession. That's not the same as 'the currency of the EU'. This isn't likely to change in the near future. Dutch and Swedish voters rejected the Euro in 2003. The UK hasn't had a referendum on the Euro, arguably because of the high probability of rejection. Countersubject 13:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree we can debate whether or not the Euro is the official currency of the EU. As a starting point, the other currencies are quite clearly not official currencies of the EU. JamesAVD 13:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

What you're saying you agree with is not what I said, which is that we cannot say that the Euro is the official currency of the EU. It isn't so; not in law, treaty or practice. Countersubject 23:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

East asia community

Anyone knkow what this is??

Intergovernmental/Supranational Language Innacuracy

The start of this page states that the EU is an intergovernmental and supranational organisation, when in the strict sense these terms are mutually exclusive. I strongly suggest a rewording. Will 12:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at the Status section. Countersubject 21:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Isle of Man

The Isle of Mann is part of the Uk but the currency is not officaly recognised by the EU as it is a crown dependancy the channel islands are pasrt of the EU as well but are also crown dependancies. This is the same situation with Åland and Finland and the contorversy over snus. -- 21:49, 21 August 2006(UTC)

The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are not part of the UK. There also opted not to join the EU. The Isle of Man article gives details of this. josh (talk) 22:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain why the EU law applies to thee areas.--Lucy-marie 22:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

See the article: Special member state territories and their relations with the European Union. EU law is applied to a various degree in several areas not considered a part of the Union such as Greenland, The Faroes, British overseas territories etc. It is even partially applied in the fully sovereign nations of Iceland and Norway. --Bjarki 17:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

EU motto

This article quotes EU's motto (under the EU flag graph, to the right) as "In varietate concordia". Below that it adds "Latin for 'United in diversity'".

First, there is no "In varietate concordia" official motto. The EU's official motto is that defined in article I-8 of the "Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe" still to be ratified after the French and Dutch citizens rejected it in referendum. This means that for each valid version of the text, there is one official motto. So, the English version of the Treaty sets "United in diversity" as the official English-language motto.

Second, being like that, anyway, the Latin translation given in the article is wrong.

I suggest we remove it then. Any objections? Countersubject 11:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I propose to use the English form, which we know is correct, since this is English Wikipedia --Mantees de Tara 15:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That begs significant questions. What verifies the motto as the EU Motto? What verifies a particular translation of the motto as the English translation? There are real constitutional issues behind these questions, that need to be addressed by any encyclopaedic article. Countersubject 17:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes as the motto is part of the EU it just needs to be verified.--Lucy-marie 12:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The point being made is that the given motto isn't part of the EU - it derives from the English-language version of a treaty that hasn't been ratified. The alternative to deletion would be an odd and/or long winded caption, e.g. A proposed but not ratified English-language motto for the EU :-) Countersubject 15:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The motto is only a very small part of the EU i dont know why we are gettimg hung up over it?--84.67.170.243 22:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm hung up on accuracy in an encyclopeadia. Don't you think that's a good thing? And while we're on the subject, the motto isn't a 'part of the EU, small or otherwise. That's the whole point of the discussion. Countersubject 07:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

See European symbols: motto for how the motto got adopted. It is not entirely official, but not entirely unsanctioned either. – Kaihsu 14:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Until something like this is entirely official, it's not even slightly official. JamesAVD 13:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms - language barriers

The article states that "Everyone in the European Parliament is entitled to communicate in their own native language and to have this interpreted into other languages", which is untrue. The languages allowed in the Parliament are those so set in its reglament, mainly the official ones (with some exceptions). There has been controversy on this issue, especially sensitive for the millions of European citizens which do not have their native languages recognized either in their home states or in the EU. The most famous case is that of Catalan language a language spoken by several milion people in three EU states plus Andorra which enjoys partial recognition in Spain. Catalan-speaking Euro MP's have been involved in a series of incidents in the EU Parliament when trying to use their native language and being interrupted or turned down their right to speak after the Parliament authorities noticed they were using Catalan. Political negotiation within the Spanish state has rendered some minor advance in the language's recognition in the EU.

Why can't they pick a good auxlang like Eo of Ia?Cameron Nedland 13:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well a recent Eurobarometer showed significant, although not majority, support of an auxiliary language. Could happen yet - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 13:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Biodiversity

Can anyone explain what the sentence about not not reaching the standards of Canada, Australia, etc, actually means? Seems like nonsense to me, and I notice a citation demand has been added. MarkThomas 10:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Not nonsense...just fact...citations have been provided in the article as requested. Anlace 14:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the citations you provided, which state what Britain, Canada and Australia are currently doing concerning BAP. However, it would be better to supply a source that states that the EU is not doing a good job compared to these countries. This now seems to be your conclusion or original research. It would also be nice to see a source that people are actually criticizing the EU for this assertion. --Van helsing 16:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

GA Review

I have passed the article in accordance to Good Article Criteria as laid out below. Reading the article logs, I can see why the article was de-listed as a Featured Article for lack of references. While I do not feel the article has addressed that concern enough for FA status, I do believe it more then covers GA status as I will note below.
1. It is well written.

Compelling and well written prose with no glaring violation of WP:MOS. Any overly technical jargon is clarified either in the article or wiki-linked.
For FA consideration you may want to review some of the section headings, in particular the titles in section 6. I say this not only for the benefit of being short and clear but also for the potential benefit of shortening the width of the table of contents. From a style view, the long white gap in the middle due to the width of both the info box and TOC is not very pleasing.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. - Pass

This was a crux issue with the FA-delisting and I think a large part of it is due to the variety of reference styles used in the article from in-line citations to mid-article external links (like in the Economic variation section) and then the books and links down at the bottom of the article. Overall you get the impression that the article is well referenced (which is why I passed it) but admittedly I found verification difficult without the benefit of more in-line citations (of which, there is the relatively small amount of 27). I would recommend that the editors here actively work to merge some of the other references into in-line citations.
The section Context — rationale for enlargement and future prospects and Main policies sections are areas of particular need for in-line citation reference.

3. It is broad in its coverage. - Pass

The article has considerable breadth and makes ample use of content forks

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy - Pass

Overall the article presents a balanced and neutral point of view about the European Union.

5. It is stable- Pass

The article is a bit of a vandal target but the article's editors are quick with clean up.

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. - Pass

The maps are excellent and I particularly like the image of the EU constitution and Treaty of Paris signing.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. Agne 02:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

ECCS

The first European community does not include West Berlin as its shown on the map of the first 6 countries. As far as I know, West Berlin was a legal entity, separate from Western Germany. Its government derived its mandate from the occupation authorities of England, USA and France, not from the electorate. DamianOFF 09:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right, West Berlin was not officially part of the Federal Republic of Germany until unification. All of Berlin, including the East, were officially under occupation by the Britain, France, the US and the Soviet Union. However, West Berlin was de facto under the administration of the West German government in Bonn and followed all Federal German laws and EEC regulations. seanjw 217.196.239.189 12:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Demographics

The European Union is a densely populated, culturally diverse union of 25 member states, constantly expanding and developing. This reads like something out of a publicity leaflet. It gives a nice warm glow, but says everything and nothing. Countersubject 07:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Work rights for new member states

The UK government is currently discussing whether to allow unlimited work rights to Romanian and Bulgarian citizens, when these countries join the EU. It is claimed that,

"The UK was one of only three existing EU members to allow unrestricted work rights to the new member states." [1],

where "new" refers to the eight states joining in 2004. I think it is a common misconception (in the UK at least) that all EU member states are obliged to grant unlimited work rights to all EU citizens. This article appears to reinforce the misconception, with the following point listed as an internal policy of the free market:

"Freedom for citizens of its member states to live and work anywhere within the EU with their spouses and children, provided they can support themselves (also extended to the other EEA states and Switzerland). This has led to a gross anomaly whereby family related social welfare benefits are payable by the member state where an EU citizen is employed, even where the family of the worker are resident elsewhere in the Union."

Can somebody find a good reference to explain this situation? Is there a law requiring existing states to accept unlimited workers from new states after a prescribed period? Mtford 12:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is. The flow of persons from Bulgaria and Romania can be limited for up to seven years. [2]--Arado 00:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Remove HDI?

There are many problems with the inclusion of a population-weighed HDI average:

verifiability: for a calculation that complicated, we need to link to a page explaining which data we used, where it came from, and how we did it
the HDI is not compatible with population-weighing; neither of its three sub-indices is, most notably not the GDP index.
technically, the HDI is only defined for a country.

Calculating the HDI for the EU isn't hard, though it is a bit tedious: all the data should be available. However, the calculation is error-sensitive enough to require the calculation page to be archived somewhere.

(If anyone does the work: please also calculate the three subindices (GDP index is trivial).)

RandomP 17:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for any edits, please revert article back to last change

Playing around with the source code, didn't mean to make changes! I'Thanks. Shadowrun 22:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Its been reverted and welcome to Wikipedia. Gdo01 22:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been around for a little while, but I haven't played with the sandbox all that much, which I took the wrong way getting acquainted with this time. Thanks for the reversion. Shadowrun 22:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Bulgaria and Romania

Bulgaria and Romania are joining the EU on 1 January 2007 according to the final report of the EU commission and Gunter Verheugen, so all postponement references are outdated…there is no chance that their membership is postponed. The last 3 states to ratify the treaty of accession, France, Denmark and Germany – have assured the EU commission and BG & RO that they will ratify the treaty on time.

There's only one more hurdle: the European Council which will meet in December will have the final say, after the ratification process, but this too will almost certailny decide in favour of the accession in 2007.

Verheugen Confirms Bulgaria, Romania in EU Jan 2007 http://novinite.com/view_news.php?id=69329

Romania, Bulgaria approved for this January EU entry - sources http://www.euronews.net/create_html.php?page=europa&article=381161&lng=1

There should be little doubt now: [3]; [4] – Kaihsu 14:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Current status: Germany and Denmark have still to ratify the treaty of accession.

Current status update: Treaty ratified by all 27 states. — Kroum 16:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, 'Part of the problem'?

On the section referring to Turkey's accession to the EU, it is stated that 'part of the problem [...] is the fact that 97% of its land mass lies on [Asia]'. While this issue has been brought up on the media, it can be considered only as a minor legal technicality. (which, by the way, is already solved as Turkey occupies some european territory). Considering that EU is an economic and political union, such an issue should be accounted only as an excuse by parties against the accession and not a realistic political argument. Think about it; in the case that Turkey meets the macroeconomic goals and democratic reforms expected by the EU, would there really be an issue about its continental setting, even if it hold no European ground? I think the sentence should be removed or rephrased to represent its minor importance to the issue. I believe that it can be misleading as it presents an issue about the accession that doesn't really exist.

I'll change it in a while if noone disagrees.

Go ahead. – Kaihsu 14:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this is the EUROPEAN Union, so if somewhere had no territory in europe, and no european cultural links, they wouldn't be let in. LIke Morocco. Zazaban 19:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Turkey not only has territory in Europe, but is also culturally European - more so than Bulgaria and Romania. Furthermore, Cyprus, which is one of the ten member states that joined, technically has no territory in the EU. These countries are grouped for official purposes under "Regions that for cultural reasons are considered Europe".

Regardless, Turkey will not be let in because of popular opposition, unless the bureaucratic tyrants in Brussels blatantly ignore our will again.

22 bordering nations?

"The European Union has land borders with 22 nations."

Unless I'm missing something, this should be either be 21, or it should be "borders" not "land borders". Guadeloupe doesn't have any land borders! Zompist 07:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It does have one: the French half of Saint Martin is part of Guadeloupe. Maartenvdbent 00:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you are counting. The EU borders the following countries:

AL (GR) AD (ES+FR) BG (GR) BR (FR) BY (LT+PL) CH (AT+DE+FR+IT) GB (CY) HR (HU+SI) LI (AT) MA (ES) MC (FR) MK (GR) NL (FR) NO (FI+SE) RO (HU) RS (HU) RU (EE+FI+LV+LT+PL) SM (IT) SR (FR) TR (GR) UA (HU+PL+SK) VA (IT) Northern Cyprus (CY)

If you count Northern Cyprus as a contry, the EU borders 23 countries. If you don't count Northern Cyprus, it's 22. GB and NL here mean possessions of GB and NL that aren't part of the EU. (218.228.195.44 04:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC))

The EU doesn't have any land borders because the EU isn't a country.

The EU doesn't have land borders any more than Mercosur has land borders. It has no territory and therefore no borders. Please provide evidence to the contrary or remove the reference. JamesAVD 17:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Spain has also border with Morocco (wich is not EU Country) and with Gibralta (thats country has a special relations with EU but in not EU country).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.44.71.92 (talk • contribs).

European Council

Headline text

lalalalala...wikipedia is hard to locate something that your looking for! woot woot!The European Council is not an official institution of the EU. It establishes the guidelines for the union and is closely connected to it. Thnk about the three-pillar structure of the EU, and imagine that the European Council actually lies above the "roof" of the structure which actually looks like a Greek temple.--Arado 16:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Although the European Council is not an official institution (although it will become one if the new constitution gets ratified) to say it is not part of the EU is absurd. It is a meeting involving solely EU heads of state, to discuss EU matters and was created by an EU act. josh (talk) 16:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well not quite. It is outside the three-pillar structure, thus outside of the EU. BUT, it has been legally recognized (through the SEA) an an organ which establishes the guidelines for future European integration.--Arado 16:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If it was simply an informal gathering of heads of state to decide where there going to take the EU next I would agree with you. However it was created by an official instrument of the EU and equally could be abolished by it. Eurostat is outside the three pillar system but inside the EU as well. The article needs to seperate it from the Official Institutions. Perhaps a venn diagram could be used to give a clear indication of how these various parts relate. josh (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not informal. I did not say that. But the first meetings of this body took place 1969, and then regularly since 1974, long before being recognized by the then-European Community through the SEA. It was created not at the initiative of the EC, but of the heads of state and government of the states which were then members of the EC.--Arado 17:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I said "If it was ... informal". Perhaps before the SEA it could have been considered as outside the EU but when it was formallised it became an official institution of the EU (even though it isn't an Official Institution). If there is some obscure piece of legislation that places it outside the EU, which I wouldn't put pass them, then that would be a different story. However, such a bold claim would need a citation to back it up. josh (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no such legislation, because treaties are not fromulated that way. You will never find such a negative delimitation, that the European Council is not an institution of the EU. Treaties state what it is and not what it isn't. However, you will find certain delimitations about the European Council, because to my knowledge, there are no document accordind to which the European Council is part of the EU. And even if that was the case, you must look at the difference between theory and practice, when it comes to law. Thta might not always be the same. --Arado 18:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Origin to the name "Europe"

I found the name "Europa" on a year 1616 map over the Gulf of Finland, describing "Europa" as a rather small area east of Vyborg in southern Finland (The map). Who are the Europeans really? This area was of major importance in the 14th century were both the Kalmar Union and the Polish-Lithuanian Union was a answer to the Roman Catholic Church's increasing power. Could the extension named CommonWealth be the real European aboriginals?

This commentary would be better placed in the Europe article talk page rather than this page for a political entity that does not have any information on the history of the continent. Gdo01 10:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The Commonwealth is a political entity.

EU is not Europe, some Europeans are living (happy) outside the union. so that has less than nothing to do in this category, as stated above

Economic variation paragraph

there is something wrong with the table and the pictures (in firefox) Aleichem 09:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm running Firefox 1.5.0.7 and it looks perfect to me. Gdo01 09:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

yes, sorry, now it looks ok to me too Aleichem 21:24, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Difference between Single Market and Monetary Union

The Union currently has a common single market consisting of a customs union, a single currency.

A Single Market is something else than a monetary union. The single market is the Economic Union. The Euro-zone is the Monetary Union. However, if you put them together, you have Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the actual state of integration in the EU. The Single Market was created before the Third and decisive stage of the process of creating the Monetary Union. They evolved in a parallel way. --Arado 14:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Why did the GDP change?

Before it was 28,300...something around there I believe, and now it is 32,000? How did that change? And the total GDP went up around 2 trillion...Was this a new report for 2006? Or did someone vandalise it? Brainboy109 0:48, October 1st 2006 (UTC)

confederation?

Calling the EU a confederation, the first paragraph contradicts one from the body of the text, which is more accurate: "Because of this unique structure most simply classify the European Union as a sui generis (unique) entity and leave it at that." The EU is not a confederation.Ezadarque 14:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Sui-generis means here that it is a combination of federation (first pillar) and confederation (second and third pillars)--Arado 19:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

From confederation article

A confederation is an association of sovereign states or communities, usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution. Confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defense, foreign affairs, foreign trade, and a common currency, with the central government being required to provide support for all members. A confederation, in modern political terms, is usually limited to a permanent union of sovereign states for common action in relation to other states[1].

The nature of the relationship between the entities constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the central government, and the distribution of powers among them, is highly variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organizations, while tighter confederations may resemble federations.

it seems to me that EU is indeed a confederation.--Pixel ;-) 17:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

On the paragraph about Turkey's accession

(I made the previous comment on removing the 'part of the problem...' sentence) Ok, so now that I have time, I will apply the changes. Taking into account the couple of responses , I will remove most of it. I will still reference the issue in some less obvious (and less than half the paragraph) way. As I see it it is an argument from a disputed section of the article Accession of Turkey to the European Union. I'll also add a link to the Copenhagen criteria#Geographic criteria which seems to clarify the subject. Treiskaitetarto 08:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

- - It doesn't seem complete, I would like to add the following image

Image:Support for turkey.gif and the following text

Presently less than 39% of European Union citizens support Turkey's entry into the Union. ^[1]

It seems to be a diservace to mention the Turkish bid, without mentioning the strong opposition to it.--Caligvla 05:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Largest City

On the information bar, the largest city is stated as being Paris. I know that there is often confusion regarding city sizes defined by metropolitan area, urban agglomeration or even just city limits - but by most of these criteria London is larger than Paris (and according to most sources I can find e.g. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconcerns/densurb/urban.aspx). Also, on Wikipedia's page on London, it is stated as being the largest city in the EU, so we have a contradiction here.

Actualy Paris is the largest Uraban Area of the European Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_urban_areas_of_the_European_Union

Other articles on the Internet also confirm that Paris Urban area is bigger than London's.

Here is an article on London's Urban area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Urban_Area

Hmm (I'm answering to the first comment here), there's no contradiction : the London article states London as having the largest metropolitan area. But "largest city" in the article links to largest urban areas of the European Union... and Paris does have a larger urban area than London. Maybe the name should be changed though, as "largest city" isn't really correct (I don't know the exact definition of city but... if you take the historical city of Paris, it's only a few million inhabitants, the city of London is a few thousands inhabitants, etc). → SeeSchloß 11:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

"Largest city" is an ambiguous term. Technically, the largest city in the EU is Greater London, since it's administered by a central urban government, even though it's divided into smaller boroughs, some with "city" status such as the City of Westminster. This can be confirmed by Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits. On the other hand, "city" can also refer to the "urban area", in which case the Paris urban area is larger according to Largest urban areas of the European Union. This is made more difficult by the fact that, as a metropolitan area, which is more inclusive than an "urban area", London is bigger - see Largest cities and metropolitan areas in the European Union (Eurostat). For this reason, I would argue that London should be placed as the largest city, since not only is it the largest city from a political point of view (i.e. as a unit), but it also seems to be the largest metropolitan area (also according to: Largest European metropolitan areas). The Paris urban area is larger, however.

Ronline ✉ 08:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. I don't care if London or Paris is chosen as the "largest city", but as long as the link is to Largest urban areas of the European Union, then it is stupid to put anything else than Paris. Anyone who wants to have London as the largest city at least needs to find a list where London is indeed at the top. If you don't even bother doing that, Paris is just fine here. → SeeSchloß 21:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Why are the links provided by Ronline not sufficient? Also - List of cities by population - London is the largest EU city here. I'm afraid that as a demographer I can tell you that "urban areas" are not cities - this is a loose definition for urban sprawl and spheres of influence (ie satellite towns) with a particular population density. A city is more tightly defined as a political unit (although obviously there is still some degree of ambiguity here). I agree with what you said in your previous post: change the word 'city' to 'urban area', otherwise change Paris to London.

Heh, well I never said the links were not sufficient. All I said was that changing the city to London while leaving the link to urban areas was wrong, and all the people who replaced Paris with London left the link to urban areas (which looks to me as if they really put London only for patriotic reasons and didn't care that much about correct data). I'm OK with replacing 'city' with 'urban area', I would have been OK too with replacing Largest urban areas of the European Union with List of cities by population and Paris with London... as long as everything is coherent, it's fine. → SeeSchloß 07:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

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