27-12-2012, 01:17 PM
EUROPEAN UNION
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INTRODUCTION
The European Union (EU) is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) formed by six countries in the 1950s. In the intervening years the EU has grown, in size, by the accession of new member states and, in power, by the addition of policy areas to its remit. The Maastricht Treaty established the European Union under its current name in 1993. The last amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009.
The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions negotiated by the member states. Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central Bank. The European Parliament is elected every five years by EU citizens.
The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states including the abolition of passport controls within the Schengen area. It ensures the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital, enacts legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. A monetary union, the eurozone, was established in 1999 and is currently composed of seventeen member states. Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy the EU has developed a limited role in external relations and defence. Permanent diplomatic missions have been established around the world and the EU is represented at theUnited Nations, the WTO, the G8 and the G-20.
With a combined population of 500 million inhabitants, the EU generated an estimated 21% (US$ 14.8 trillion) share of the global economy (GDP PPP) in 2009. As a trading bloc the EU accounts for 20% of global imports and exports
BENEFITS OF EU
1. Peace amongst nations - European Union countries are no longer at loggerheads like they were in the past.
2. Economic development of countries like Portugal, Ireland and Spain.
3. Free Movement of workers across Europe.
4. Prospect of membership has helped modernize Turkey.
Policies of NAFTA
Like other economic integrations NAFTA has also policies related to all the aspects which affect economy of these three member states. But their special focus is on some sectors like environment, agriculture and mobility of person.
Formation of NAFTA –NAFTA is the product of a culmination of thought. Said to have been influenced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the bilateral trade and services agreement between the United States and Israel, the Trade and Tariff Act, and the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States, it began when Ronald Regan campaigned for a North American common market.
President Reagan, an atypical politician, ambitiously followed through with his agenda once elected. After Congress passed the Trade and Tariff Act, granting Fast Track privilege to the president (essentially meaning that negotiations regarding free trade agreements would be handled strictly by the president, whereas Congress can only approve or disapprove agreements following negotiations), President Ronald Reagan opened negotiations with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada and President Carlos Salinas de Gotari of Mexico. As a result, a preliminary agreement was signed between the United States and Mexico in 1987 and a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1988. With the formal proposal of a free trade agreement between the United States and Mexico by President Salinas de Gotari in 1990, the seed was sewn, and representatives of the three countries signed NAFTA only two years later (superseding all prior free trade agreements in North America).
NAFTA is the product of a culmination of thought. Said to have been influenced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the bilateral trade and services agreement between the Unite
Impact on Mexican farmers
In 2000, U.S. government subsidies to the corn sector totaled $10.1 billion. These subsidies have led to charges of dumping, which jeopardizes Mexican farms and the country's food self-sufficiency.
Other studies reject NAFTA as the force responsible for depressing the incomes of poor corn farmers, citing the trend's existence more than a decade before NAFTA's existence, an increase in maize production after NAFTA went into effect in 1994, and the lack of a measurable impact on the price of Mexican corn due to subsidized corn coming into Mexico from the United States, though they agree that the abolition of U.S. agricultural subsidies would benefit Mexican farmers. According to Graham Purchase in Anarchism and Environmental Survival, NAFTA could cause "the destruction of the ejidos (peasant cooperative village holdings) by corporate interests, and threatens to completely reverse the gains made by rural peoples in the Mexican Revolution.