states in 1951 to today's
supranational organization of 27 countries across the European
continent stands as an unprecedented phenomenon in the annals of
history. Dynastic unions for territorial consolidation were long the
norm in Europe. On a few occasions even country-level unions were
arranged - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire were examples - but for such a large number
of nation-states to cede some of their sovereignty to an overarching
entity is truly unique. Although the EU is not a federation in the
strict sense, it is far more than a free-trade association such as
ASEAN, NAFTA, or Mercosur, and it has many of the attributes
associated with independent nations: its own flag, anthem, founding
date, and currency, as well as an incipient common foreign and
security policy in its dealings with other nations. In the future,
many of these nation-like characteristics are likely to be expanded.
Thus, inclusion of basic intelligence on the EU has been deemed
appropriate as a new, separate entity in The World Factbook.
However, because of the EU's special status, this description is
placed after the regular country entries.

Background:
Following the two devastating World Wars of the first half of the
20th century, a number of European leaders in the late 1940s became
convinced that the only way to establish a lasting peace was to
unite the two chief belligerent nations - France and Germany - both
economically and politically. In 1950, the French Foreign Minister
Robert SCHUMAN proposed an eventual union of all Europe, the first
step of which would be the integration of the coal and steel
industries of Western Europe. The following year the European Coal
and Steel Community (ECSC) was set up when six members, Belgium,
France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, signed
the Treaty of Paris. The ECSC was so successful that within a few
years the decision was made to integrate other parts of the
countries' economies. In 1957, the Treaties of Rome created the
European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy
Community (Euratom), and the six member states undertook to
eliminate trade barriers among themselves by forming a common
market. In 1967, the institutions of all three communities were
formally merged into the European Community (EC), creating a single
Commission, a single Council