Holland in European Union
 The ideas of uniting Europe appeared very early. Soon after the end of the second world war they started working on putting these ideas into effect.
 The Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of the European Steel and Coal Community was the first and founding instrument of the European Union and the EU Constitution, defining the main European institutions in an initial form. It was signed on 18 April 1951 and came into force on 25 July 1952. Holland was one of the founding countries.
The Maastricht Treaty
The Treaty on European Union initiated the road to political and economic and monetary union. It was drafted at a historic juncture in which the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Soviet block made necessary a re-thinking of the European project. Among several significant innovations, such as EU citizenship and the EMU, the Treaty of Maastricht created the so-called three pillar structure. It was signed In a Dutch city of Maastricht by 12 member states of European Community (Holland among them) on 7 February 1992 and came into force on 1 November 1993.
The Schengen Agreement
On 14 June 1985 the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Schengen Agreement (Schengen being a place in Luxembourg) on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders. In 1995 the following countries joined this agreement:
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Island.
The Council of European Union
The Council of European Union is the most important institution taking valid decisions connected with Common Policy of Foreign Affairs and Security. It is consisted of the ministers of particular resorts of each member state. Every half year another member state leads the Council. Holland lead the Council for the second half of 2004.
The division of votes in the Council of European Union is following:
- Germany 99
- France 78
- United Kingdom 78
- Italy 78
- Spain 54
- Poland 54
- Netherlands 27
- Belgium 24
- Czech Republic 24
- Greece 24
- Hungary 24
- Portugal 24
- Sweden 19
- Austria 18
- Denmark 14
- Finland 14
- Slovakia 14
- Ireland 13
- Lithuania 13
- Latvia 9
- Slovenia 7
- Cyprus 6
- Estonia 6
- Luxembourg 6
- Malta 5
Observers
- Romania 35
- Bulgaria 18
Euro
A very important stage of Economic and Currency Union is a single currency - euro. It has been adopted by twelve of twenty five member states: France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Finland,Austria and Greece.
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