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Events from the year 2001 in the European Union .
The year was designated the European Year of Languages by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. [1]
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Events from the year 2001 in the European Union .
The year was designated the European Year of Languages by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. [1]
Romano Prodi 
Sweden (January–June), 
Belgium (July–December)
Nicole Fontaine 
Javier Solana 
The euro is the official currency of 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, commonly, the eurozone, and includes about 344 million citizens as of 2023. The euro is divided into 100 euro cents.
Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek reform, to those who oppose EU membership and see the EU as unreformable. The opposite of Euroscepticism is known as pro-Europeanism, or European Unionism.
There are eight euro coin denominations, ranging from one cent to two euros. The coins first came into use in 2002. They have a common reverse, portraying a map of Europe, but each country in the eurozone has its own design on the obverse, which means that each coin has a variety of different designs in circulation at once. Four European microstates that are not members of the European Union use the euro as their currency and also have the right to mint coins with their own designs on the obverse side.
The euro area, commonly called the eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 20 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies.
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) is a system introduced by the European Economic Community on 1 January 1999 alongside the introduction of a single currency, the euro as part of the European Monetary System (EMS), to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve monetary stability in Europe.
Lithuania, as an EU member state, joined the eurozone by adopting the euro on 1 January 2015. This made it the last of the three Baltic states to adopt the euro, after Estonia (2011) and Latvia (2014). Before then, its currency, the litas, was pegged to the euro at 3.4528 litas to 1 euro.
Sweden does not currently use the euro as its currency and has no plans to replace the existing Swedish krona in the near future. Sweden's Treaty of Accession of 1994 made it subject to the Treaty of Maastricht, which obliges states to join the eurozone once they meet the necessary conditions. Sweden maintains that joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism II, participation in which for at least two years is a requirement for euro adoption, is voluntary, and has chosen to remain outside pending public approval by a referendum, thereby intentionally avoiding the fulfilment of the adoption requirements.
The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999, although it had been a goal of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since the 1960s. After tough negotiations, the Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating an economic and monetary union (EMU) by 1999 for all EU states except the UK and Denmark.
The United Kingdom did not seek to adopt the euro as its official currency for the duration of its membership of the European Union (EU), and secured an opt-out at the euro's creation via the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, wherein the Bank of England would only be a member of the European System of Central Banks.
Events from the year 2003 in the European Union.
The enlargement of the eurozone is an ongoing process within the European Union (EU). All member states of the European Union, except Denmark which negotiated an opt-out from the provisions, are obliged to adopt the euro as their sole currency once they meet the criteria, which include: complying with the debt and deficit criteria outlined by the Stability and Growth Pact, keeping inflation and long-term governmental interest rates below certain reference values, stabilising their currency's exchange rate versus the euro by participating in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and ensuring that their national laws comply with the ECB statute, ESCB statute and articles 130+131 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The obligation for EU member states to adopt the euro was first outlined by article 109.1j of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which became binding on all new member states by the terms of their treaties of accession.
Events from the year 2009 in the European Union.
Events from the year 2002 in the European Union.
Euro starter kits are packs of euro coins of all the eight denominations sealed in a plastic sachet. The kits' purpose is primarily to familiarise citizens of a nation joining the eurozone with their new currency. A further objective is to provide coins for retailers' cash registers well in advance of their respective €-Day. Usually these kits are available from local banks some weeks before euro changeover.
Events from the year 2000 in the European Union.
The Eurogroup is the recognised collective term for the informal meetings of the finance ministers of the eurozone—those member states of the European Union (EU) which have adopted the euro as their official currency. The group has 20 members. It exercises political control over the currency and related aspects of the EU's monetary union such as the Stability and Growth Pact. The current President of the Eurogroup is Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform of Ireland.
The 1995 enlargement of the European Union saw Austria, Finland, and Sweden accede to the European Union (EU). This was the EU's fourth enlargement and came into effect on 1 January of that year. It is also known as the EFTAn Enlargement round All these states were previous members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and had traditionally been less interested in joining the EU than other European countries. Norway had negotiated to join alongside the other three but following the signing of the treaty, membership was turned down by the Norwegian electorate in the 1994 national referendum. Switzerland also applied for membership on 26 May 1992, but withdrew it after a negative referendum result on 6 December 1992.
The banking union of the European Union is the transfer of responsibility for banking policy from the national to the EU level in several EU member states, initiated in 2012 as a response to the Eurozone crisis. The motivation for banking union was the fragility of numerous banks in the Eurozone, and the identification of a vicious circle between credit conditions for these banks and the sovereign credit of their respective home countries. In several countries, private debts arising from a property bubble were transferred to sovereign debt as a result of banking system bailouts and government responses to slowing economies post-bubble. Conversely, weakness in sovereign credit resulted in deterioration of the balance sheet position of the banking sector, not least because of high domestic sovereign exposures of the banks.
Events in the year 2015 in the European Union.
Years in the European Union (1993–present) | ||
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