The
European continent itself, which has an unclear boundary, the European Union
also has some fuzzy edges to it. To start, the official members of the European
Union is , in decreasing order of population:
·
Germany
·
France
·
The United Kingdom
·
Italy
·
Spain
·
Poland
·
Romania
·
The Kingdom of the Netherlands
·
Greece
·
Belgium
·
Portugal
·
The Czech Republic
·
Hungary
·
Sweden
·
Austria
·
Bulgaria
·
Denmark
·
Slovakia
·
Finland
·
Ireland
·
Croatia
·
Lithuania
·
Latvia
·
Slovenia
·
Estonia
·
Cyprus
·
Luxembourg
·
Malta
The
edges of the EU will probably continue to expand further out as there are other
countries in various stages of trying to become a member. You need to know only
three things:
1. Countries
pay membership dues and
2. Vote on laws
they all must follow and
3. Citizens of
member countries are automatically European Union citizens as well
This
last means that if you're a citizen of any of these countries you are free to
live and work or retire in any of the others. This is nice especially if you
think your country is too big or too small or too hot or too cold. The European
Union gives you options.
The first bit of border fuzziness with Norway, Iceland, and little Liechtenstein. None
of which are in the European Union but if you're an EU citizen you can live in these
countries and Norwegians, Icelanders, or Liechtensteiner (in) scan can live in
yours. In exchange for the freedom of movement of people they have to pay
membership fees to the European Union -- even though they aren't a part of it
and thus don't get a say in its laws that they still have to follow.
This the arrangement is the European Economic Area and it sounds like a terrible deal,
were it not for that asterisk which grants EEA but not EU members a pass on
some areas of law notably farming and fishing – something a country like
Iceland might care quite a lot about running their own way. Between the
European Union and the European Economic Area the continent looks mostly
covered, with the notable exception of Switzerland who remains neutral and
fiercely independent, except for her participation in the Schengen
Area.
If
you're from a country that keeps its borders extremely clean and/or
well-patrolled, the Schengen Area is a bit mind-blowing because it's an
agreement between countries to take a 'meh' approach to borders. In the Schengen, The area has no border officers or passport checks of any kind. You can walk from
Lisbon to Tallinn without identification or need to answer the question: "business
or pleasure?”
For
Switzerland being part of Schengen but not part of the European Union means
that non-Swiss can check in any time they like, but they can never stay. This
kumbaya approach to borders isn't appreciated by everyone in the EU: most
loudly, the United Kingdom and Ireland argue that islands are different. Thus
to get onto these fair isles, you'll need a passport and a good reason. Britannia's
reluctance to get fully involved with the EU brings us to the next topic:
money. The European Union has its own fancy currency, the Euro used by the
majority, but not all of the European Union members.
This economic union is called the Eurozone and to join a country must first reach
certain financial goals -- and lying about reaching those goals is certainly
not something anyone would do. Most of the non-Eurozone members when they meet
the goals will ditch their local currency in favor of the Euro but three of
them Denmark, Sweden, and, of course, the United Kingdom, have asterisks
attracted to the Euro sections of the treaty giving them a permanent out-out.
And
weirdly, four tiny European countries Andorra, San Marino, Monaco & Vatican
City have an asterisk giving them the reverse: the right print and use Euros as
their money, despite not being in the European Union at all. So that's the big
picture: there's the EU, which makes all the rules, the Eurozone inside it with
a common currency, the European Economic Area outside of it where people can
move freely and the selective Schengen, for countries who think borders just
aren't worth the hassle.
As
you can see, there are some strange overlaps with these borders, but we're not
done talking about complications by a long shot one again, because of empire. So
Portugal and Spain have islands from their colonial days that they've never
parted with: these are the Madeira and Canary Islands are off the coast of
Africa and the Azores well into the Atlantic.
Because
these islands are Spanish and Portuguese they're part of the European Union as
well. Adding a few islands to the EU's borders isn't a big deal until you
consider France: the queen of not letting go. She still holds onto a bunch of
islands in the Caribbean, Reunion off the coast of Madagascar, and French Guiana
in South America. As far as France is concerned, these are France too, which
single-handedly extends the edge-to-edge distance of the European Union across
a third of Earth's circumference?
Collectively,
these bits of France, Spain, and Portugal are called the Outermost Regions and
they're the result of the simple answer to empire: just keep it. On the other
hand, there's the United Kingdom, the master of maintaining complicated
relationships with her quasi-former lands -- and she's by no means alone in
this is on such an empire-happy continent.
The
Netherlands and Denmark and France (again) all have what the European Union
calls overseas. In general European Union law doesn't apply to these places,
though in general, the people who live there are European Union citizens because
in general, they have the citizenship of their associated country, so in general
they can live anywhere in the EU they want but in general other European Union
citizens can't freely move to these territories.
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