History of the European Union欧盟历史.doc

History of the European Union The?European Union?is a?geo-political?entity covering a large portion of the European continent. It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions that have taken it from 6?member states?to 28, a majority of states in Europe. As distinct from ideas of?federation,?confederation?or?customs union?the main development in Europe depends on a?supranationalfoundation to?make war unthinkable and materially impossible[1][2]?and reinforce democracy[3]?enunciated by?Robert Schuman?and other leaders in the?Europe Declaration. The principle was at the heart of the?European Coal and Steel Community?(ECSC) in theTreaty of Paris (1951), following the Schuman Declaration and the later the?Treaties of Rome?establishing the?European Economic Community?(EEC) and the?European Atomic Energy Community?(EAEC). Both the ECSC and EEC were later incorporated into the European Union while the EAEC maintains a distinct legal identity despite sharing members and institutions. Pre-1945: Idea of Europe Large areas of Europe had previously been united by empires built on force, such as the?Roman Empire,?Byzantine Empire,?Frankish Empire,?Holy Roman Empire,?Ottoman Empire, the?First French Empire?and?Greater German Reich. A peaceful means of some consolidation of European territories used to be provided by?dynastic unions; less common were country-level unions, such as the?Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth?and?Austro-Hungarian Empire.[4] In the?Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle?of 1818,?Tsar Alexander, as the most advanced internationalist of the day, suggested a kind of permanent European union and even proposed the maintenance of international military forces to provide recognised states with support against changes by violence.[5] Largely due to the devastating effects of war many people turned to the idea of some form of unified Europe, notably?William Penn,Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre,?Victor Hugo,?Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi?and?Giuseppe Mazzini. Such ideas