Where, is the European Union? Obviously here somewhere, but much like the
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 are, 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. How exactly the European Union works is hideously
complicated and a story for another time, but for this video you need 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. Which 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. By the way, did you notice how all three of
these statements have asterisks attached to this unhelpful footnote? Well, get used to it: Europe loves asterisks
that add exceptions to complicated agreements. These three, for example, point us toward
the first bit of border fuzziness with Norway, Iceland and little Liechtenstein. None of which are in the European Union but
if you're a EU citizen you can live in these countries and Norwegians, Icelanders, or Liechtensteiner(in)s
can can live in yours. Why? 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 its laws that they still have to follow. This 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 her 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 Area international boundaries
look like this: 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 koombaya approach to borders isn't appreciated
by everyone in the EU: most loudly, the United Kingdom and Ireland who 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's some strange overlaps
with these borders, but we're not done talking about complications by a long shot one again,
because 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 on such an empire-happy continent. The Netherlands and Denmark and France (again)
all have what the European Union calls Overseas Territories: they're not part of the European
Union, instead they're a bottomless well of asterisks due to their complicated relationships
with both with the European Union and their associated countries which makes it hard to
say anything meaningful about them as a group but... 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. Which makes these places a weird, semipermeable
membrane of the European Union proper and the final part we're going to talk about in
detail even though there are still many, more one-off asterisks you might stumble upon,
such as: the Isle of Man or those Spanish Cities in North Africa or Gibraltar, who pretends
to be part of Southwest England sometimes, or that region in Greece where it's totally
legal to ban women, or Saba & friends who are part of the Netherlands and so should
be part of the EU, but aren't, or the Faeroe Islands upon which while citizens of Denmark
live they lose their EU citizenship, and on and on it goes. These asterisks almost never end, but this
video must.
It appears even the great CGPGrey cannot completely explain the EU in one video. Don't worry Grey, my history teacher couldn't do it in an entire semester.
This might have been a fun fact to include in this, again because: Empire.
Greenland, as a part of the Kingdom of Denmark joined the EEC with Denmark in 1973, but left again after a plebiscite in 1985. Mostly as they wanted to retain some of their fishing rights (which where at that time, ironically legally being controlled from Copenhagen in the first place, although Copenhagen rarely interfeered with it, especially after the Home Rule act of 1979. After a Greenlandic plebiscite, they were in 2009 granted full autonomy on everything except foreign and defence policy). This probably makes Greenland the only area to ever leave the EEC/EU and certainly the first
Swapping the stars for asterisks was a work of satirical art.
This little union aint all that bad though despite constant bitching from just about everyone. People, they get to bogged down in ego and details that they seem to forget that throughout all of history before the EU, European nations were constantly kicking the everliving shit out of each other. Give me an asterisk over an axe any day. Seriously, what is the history of war and death count exactly?
I have this idea that if a North American entity joined the EU, We would have to change our name to Transatlantic Union. We would become the TaU and suddenly have awesome anime robots and battle suits... but I don't think it works like that.
Little expansion, cause funnily enough not one of the three countries you mentioned (UK, Sweden, Denmark) have the same asterisk applied to them.
UK got a complete opt-out from anything that has to do with the euro, they retain their national currency.
Denmark got an opt-out from completely adopting the euro but in name as they are members of ERM-2 meaning their currency has a fixed exchange rate to the euro within a certain band.
Sweden finally is similar to UK in it's rights but it's non-adoption of the euro is more of a curiosity than anything else as they were never a member of ERM-1 and are thus not obliged to go to ERM-2 and finally ERM-3, full euro adoption. Why? Because ERM-1 is now part of the EU acquis future members need to comply with but it did not apply to past members as all of them already adopted it - except Sweden and UK.
Oh and please make more videos about the EU, all those asteriskes are really really fun and can show US Americans a different view on how states are run.
I'm a Portuguese citizen, I have traveled to England and have never needed a passport. My Citizen Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Card_%28Portugal%29) was enough.
Does this mean if you, like, have a visa to one of the countries, you're free to move about all of them?
I assume you didn't intend this video as a comedy, but it made me laugh.
So wait... what's this about Greece and banning women?
I was just wondering if Saint Pierre and Miquelon would expand the reach of France further than Caribbean territories. But then again, I'm not really sure how France and Saint Pierre and Miquelon work together. Saint Pierre and Miquelon is self governing, but I'm not sure if that's more of a Canada v. UK or Scotland v. UK thing.