EU in Financial Crisis

Largely due to diversity in races, languages and cultures, wars and regional conflicts have often occurred in Europe from the ancient days so far. In order to establish peaceful coexistence and prosperity in the region through mutual cooperation and coalition, major European countries formed a union among the nations upon the end of the World War II which had devastated the continent.

After the collapse of communism across Central and Eastern Europe in 1990s, European Union member countries became closer and the number of EU member countries increased to 27 countries.

In 1993, the Single Market was completed in Europe to ensure the ¡®four freedoms¡¯ of movement of goods, services, people and money. Since the two core treaties of EU, the ¡®Maastricht¡¯ Treaty (¸¶½ºÆ®¸®È÷Æ® Á¶¾à) on European Union in 1993 and the Treaty of Amsterdam (¾Ï½ºÅ׸£´ã Á¶¾à) in 1999 were concluded, European people were encouraged to pay more attention for better cooperation among the countries, better preservation of their environment and common security and defense of their countries. And the area of freedom, security and justice for the EU citizens were established.

On January 1, 1999, euro was launched as the currency for more than 300 million people in Europe. Euro banknote and coins are legal tender in 16 of 27 member countries nowadays.

In spite of the good purpose of more harmonious and united EU countries, the serious gap among the member countries in terms of economic wealth and living conditions caused many problems. In particular, Greece is one of EU countries which have suffered financial crisis and could barely survive the crisis with the 110 billion bailout euro money agreed by the European governments. To back up the falling euro, the EU governments also decided to support $1 trillion for other indebted member countries.

Hungary and Spain are also reported to have financial difficulties, needing the massive help from their member countries. These EU financial crises have adversely influenced the major international markets already, raising a serious attention for the sooner recovery of EU countries.