the history of the European Union in three minutes the first thing to unify Europe was tectonic shift then when humans finally evolved much of Europe was unified by the Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire the Frankish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire which was like the Roman Empire but a bit more Pious in fact the patchwork of separate European States we know today is a relatively recent invention the United Kingdom only became a United Kingdom in 1707 modern Belgium and Italy came along later and places like Slovakia and Croatia only popped up again in the 1990s
along with lvia Estonia and the Spice Girls but the main step towards reunifying Europe came after the devastating impact of the two World Wars which led to all sorts of new international agreements borders and structures after World War II Winston Churchill called for the creation of a United States of Europe to save it from infinite misery and final Doom the first big step towards this was the Schuman declaration a declaration declared by French foreign minister Rober Schuman and what he declared was that because coal and steel were so vital for war those Industries in France
and Germany should be linked together to make war not only Unthinkable but materially impossible but he said it in French this led to the European coal and Steel Community also joined by Italy the Netherlands Belgium and Luxembourg and then the same six countries signed the Treaty of Rome establishing the European economic Community or eec though later it dropped an e and became the EC the community established a common market for the free movement of goods Capital Services and people and was so successful that others wanted in the UK tried to join in 1963 and in
1967 but both times were blocked by France and general deal who just said no the UK were finally allowed to join join in 1973 along with Denmark and Ireland and in 1981 Greece was the word as the community grew it evolved Belgium France Luxembourg the Netherlands and West Germany signed the shenen agreement in 1985 which began the process of removing border controls and making the free movement of people that bit Freer they also got branding picking a flag a motto and an Anthem and in 1986 Spain and Portugal joined followed by the freshly reunified Germany
in 1990 once the wall had come down and David Hasselhoff had left then in 1992 the big one the mastr treaty creating the European Union and also the Euro even if choosing a name took a bit longer and despite the UK and Denmark holding tight to their own currencies in the meantime countries were joining faster than you can say fall of the Soviet block the EU itself even won the Nobel Peace Prize they probably fought over who got to keep it so by the time the financial crisis arrived in 2008 the EU was locked together
in a single currency with a massively increased membership the start of the toughest Years yet for the EU with calls for even more reform but thanks to EU rules on Mobile roaming tariffs at least those calls are cheaper to make and there's certainly not a shortage of countries wanting to join even While others may be looking for the exit if you enjoyed this clip feel free to follow the links on screen for more interesting articles and free courses from the open University
