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| The
nature of the EU
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The term European Union (EU) is known to every single informed
individual. Due to the last activity of this formation it
is very hard to underestimate its importance as it plays the
leading role in all decision making in Europe. The fact that
EU is the European economic and political community consisting
of twenty-seven countries is the first key factor explaining
the nature of the EU primarily because it reveals the attempt
of Europe to establish a political and economic uniform system
for better self-positioning in international relations. EU
has three foundations – European communities, common
security policy within these communities and of course police
and judicial collaboration to make Europe a safe place. It
has a solid law system applying to each and every single member-country.
It may be said that its primary goal was the creation of a
single market and the appearance of euro is the best proof.
The Schengen Agreement gives EU citizens the possibility to
cross the borders of the EU countries without a visa. The
existence of such economic and political community gave birth
to the European Commission, the Council, the Parliament, the
Court of Justice and the Central Bank of the European Union.
Basically, together all the small members of the EU have formed
a strong political and economic force which protects them
from each other and the rest of the world.
The United Nations (UN) is also a union of countries as EU
but on international level and with a higher position. General
objectives and issues of the EU bear resemblance to the objectives
of UN. The United Nations like the European Union was created
as a facilitator of political, economic and social relations
within a given set of countries. The basic difference is that
UN carries out these issues internationally and is primarily
in contrast to EU focused on peacemaking and not on trade.
Therefore its laws and securities apply to one hundred ninety-two
countries of the world and therefore possess an international
character. One might say that the United Nations is the Child
of War, the post-war reaction of the world to the WWII. The
world did not want this to happen again and the United Nations
became the platform and a guarantee that peace will be maintained
within the members. Both EU and UN have political and economic
uniform systems. The UN the same way as the European Union
has a court, security, social and economic councils. In spite
of these similarities the United Nations has more to do with
human rights and international security. It takes care of
the wellbeing of the people suffering from aggression and
provides financial help to “indigent” countries.
Therefore, the idea of unity on base of one common goal is
among one of the most coinciding objectives of the EU and
the UN. Correspondingly, the objectives and the issues of
these two organizations may be compared in this direction
only. The European Union solves local political, economic
and security problems but is dominantly concentrated on trade
patterns. The United Nations solves international political,
economic and security problems with a focus on being the “human
peace security resource”. The EU’s most known
resolution is the Schengen Agreement and the UN’s signed
the United Nations Millennium Declaration dealing with eliminations
of poverty, child mortality, hunger, provide education, security
and other vital issues. It is obvious that the EU and the
UN have different “mass”. The United Nations represents
the interests of the world while the European Union represents
mainly economic interests of twenty-seven countries.
In terms of comparative politics the analysis of these to
“cases” reveals the dependent and independent
variables. Both of the organizations are important for the
foreign international relations. Nevertheless, the United
Nations has a more global character as compared to the European
Union. The comparison of these two formations completely fits
Mill’s method of difference. According to it the fact
that the EU and the UN are both organized unions of a set
of countries with common goals leads to the conclusions that
they have one objective foundation. This objective foundation
is the independent variable and the difference of some issues
and the general direction of work – are dependent variables.
The politics of Europe is totally reflected in the objectives
of the European Union and in its turn the European Union is
a very important formation. The United Nations in its turn
is an example of a global organization with global objectives.
Therefore this topic relate to comparative politics in the
most evident way.
Bibliography:
1. Craig Paul. Grainne de Burca (2007). EU Law, Text, Cases
and Materials. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press
2. Steiner, Josephine, Lorna Woods, Christian Twigg-Flesner
(2006). EU Law. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
3. Barnard, Catherine (2007). The Substantive Law of the EU:
The Four Freedoms. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
4. United Nations, Divided World: The UN’s Roles in
International Relations edited by Adam Roberts and Benedict
Kingsbury, Oxford University Press; 2nd edition
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