WHAT IS EUROZONE ?
- · The eurozone an economic and monetary union (EMU) of 17 European Union (EU) member states that have adopted the euro (€) as their common currency and sole legal tender.
- · The eurozone currently consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
- · Most other EU states are obliged to join once they meet the criteria to do so. No state has left and there are no provisions to do so or to be expelled.
·
It is officially called as the EUROAREA
WHAT IS EUROPEAN UNION ?
·
The European Union (EU) is an economic
and political union or confederationof
27 member states which are located
primarily in Europe.
·
The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), formed by six countries in 1958.
·
In the intervening years the EU has
grown in size by the accession of new member states,
and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit.
·
The Maastricht
Treaty established the European Union under its current name in
1993.
·
The latest amendment to the
constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of
Lisbon, came into force in 2009.
WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
?
·
The European Parliament (abbreviated
as Europarl or the EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution
of the European Union (EU).
·
Together with the Council of the European
Union (the Council) and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function
of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in
the world.
·
The Parliament is currently composed of 754
Members of the European Parliament, who serve the second largest democratic
electorate in the world (after India) and the largest trans-national democratic
electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009).
·
It has been directly elected every five
years by universal suffrage since 1979.
·
Although the European Parliament has
legislative power that such bodies as those above do not possess, it does not
formally possess legislative initiative, as most state parliaments within the
Union do.
WHAT IS SIX PACK ?
·
The EU economic governance Sixpack
describes a set of European legislative measures to reform the Stability and Growth Pact and to introduce new
macroeconomic surveillance.
·
These measures were bundled into a
"six pack" in negotiations between the European
Council and European Parliament.
·
They aim at strengthening the
procedures to reduce public deficits and
address macroeconomic imbalances.
WHAT IS THE EUROPLUS PACT ?
·
The Euro-Plus Pact, also
initially called the Competitiveness Pact or later the Pact for the
Euro,is a 2011 plan in which the member states
of the European Union make concrete commitments to a list of
political reforms which are intended to improve the fiscal strength and
competitiveness of each country.
·
The plan was advocated by the French and
German governments for more widespread adoption by other Eurozone countries.
·
As such it is designed as a more
stringent successor to the Stability and Growth
Pact, which has not been implemented consistently.
·
The pact has been controversial not
only because of the closed way in which it was developed but also for the goals
that it postulates.
·
It was adopted in March 2011 and uses
the EU's Open Method of Coordination.
WHAT IS TREATY OF LISBON ?
·
The Treaty of Lisbon or Lisbon
Treaty (initially known as the Reform Treaty) is an international agreement that amends the two
treaties which form the constitutional basis of the European
Union (EU).
·
The Lisbon Treaty was signed by the EU member states on 13 December 2007, and entered
into force on 1 December 2009.
·
It amends the Treaty
on European Union (TEU; also known as the Maastricht Treaty) and the
Treaty establishing the European Community
(TEC; also known as the Treaty of Rome).
·
In this process, the Rome Treaty was
renamed to the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union (TFEU).
It is important to get the differences
between Europe, the European Union (EU), the Euro, and Eurozone.
- Some countries in Europe chose to use the Euro but are not official members of the Eurozone: Kosovo, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, and Montenegro.
- Some countries that are part of the EU (European Union) system but do not use the Euro: Denmark, Sweden, the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania.
- Countries that have pegged their currencies to the Euro with a view to joining the Euro: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Denmark.
- The European Union (EU) is a project of common economic and political union. This covers a more restricted region than the geographical area of Europe. That is, EU excludes countries to the eastern and southern regions of wider Europe: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova,and Macedonia.
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