The Origin of the European Union - Research Paper Example

The EU is an association of mostly European nations. It was formed in mid 20th century with the first treaty signed among the first countries the in 23rd July 1952. Since its inception, there have been more developments such as the signing of more treaties and more importantly, the inclusion of more countries joining the union. Specifically, countries from the Eurasia region, which were former states of the Soviet Union, such as Bulgarian, Romania and Estonia have joined the EU (Brydon, 2008, 159). Among these new members, Bulgaria is the biggest in terms of the area, and this has an implication of the environment (Carius et al, 2011). There have been a number of things that make the EU members to mistrust each other. This is especially so between the older members and the new members. The fact that most of these countries in the EU have different standings on different issues such as the economic and judicial systems makes trust a serious issue in the EU. Those countries in the EU which are former communist members of the soviet have been accused of not being collaborative enough in implementing the right economic and the legal system. This has led to the mistrust which is in twofold. First, the older members of the EU do not trust the newer members, most of them having been former members of the Soviet Union. They feel that these newer members may not be desiring to bring in to the union as much as they should. The newer member states at the same time have also been mistrusting the older members because they feel that they may be taken advantage of, especially with regard to economic exploitation. This has led to high, tensions and this mistrust has led to the some of the members being suspended from the union. New members have been required to fully conform to EU standards (Lewis, 2000, p.116). At the same time, the role and mandate of EU in the region continue to change and increase (Woolcock, 2009, p.149). According to Molle (2006, p.12) all forms of integration requires some form of permanent agreement that will bind the different members together. These agreements scan lead to mistrust when some members feel that they are being put to a disadvantage. Mythology To be able to get the data regarding the issue of trust within the EU, the study will look for various sources of information ranging from the fallowing; Websites The issue of trust in the EU has been abundantly evident, and there are professional websites that have published and publicized the issue over time. Most professional websites have provided credible information about the issue and have also given enough data and statistics regarding the factors that have made trust an issue. These statistics revolve around issues such as, democracy, economic systems, and the level of corruption, especially with regard to ex-communist members in the EU. These websites will provide useful and credible information with regard to the issue of trust. Books Since the EU was formed, a lot of authors, both academic and professional, have written about the issue of trust in the EU. These books tackle various topics ranging from economics to politics of the EU. Both positive and negative information has been written about the EU, and this provides a good research ground to understand the internal workings of the EU. Some have criticized the EU by saying that its goals are just big pink elephants that will never be realized. Similarly, there are those who have given praise to the union and see it as a savoir in the European continent. These books will provide a good research foundation for this study. Journals and magazines Journals and magazines have also published information about the EU since it was formed. The current issues of trust within the union have been a difficult topic covered by the many journals and magazines available. These journals and magazines also provide good insights and understanding about the issue of trust in the EU, especially with regard to economics. The legal system Cooperation at the legal front in extremely beneficial for EU member states and it is noteworthy that there be useful and constructive cooperation among the EU members. To achieve this, the EU has tried to use cooperation instruments for legal matters (Ellen and Kramer, 2012, p.368). However, as Vermeulen, Bondt and Ryckman (2012, p.723) say, even with these cooperation instruments, the ironical issue is that they are more prescriptive, which means that the cooperating members seem to be on the receiving ends rather than being equal cooperating members. The fact that these countries have different histories has meant that they have different legal systems history. New members have been accused by the older members of not willing to implement an air-tight legal system. For instance, judges from the new members who are ex-communist countries are likely to be more reluctant to fight crimes. While those countries that are not ex-communist countries are fully dedicated to curbing crime, their counterparts are least likely to do same thing. A good example is the case in Bulgaria where in the year 2009, the country had almost 200 ordered murders, none of which were solved (The Economist, 2008). This tolerance to crime has been a complicated issue of trust because the issue because the conservative founding members want to be truly sure that their counterpart in the ex-communist nations will be as dedicated as they are to curb crime. The other issue that has been an issue of contention is the issue of corruption. In most of these new members that are ex-communist members, corruption is much higher, and that is not the main problem, the main issue is that the judicial system in these ex-communist member countries are seen to be less willing to participate in eradicating corruption. For this reason, there has been a trend in which the older member states have continually accused the newer members of not willing to eradicate corruption and cleaning the judicial system. With regard to the legal system, members of EU have to align their legal systems with the legal requirements of the EU, for there are laws that govern the EU that may be dissimilar to the laws of the individual members. More importantly though aligning the legal system to the EU legal system is a much more serious issue. It is, however, not only the older members of the EU that have not been able to trust the newer members. The new members are also untrusting with regard to how the legal system has been implemented in some of the older member of the EU. Even the yet to join countries, like Turkey, has been on the receiving end of the mistrust in the EU. In fact, Turkey has been in the quest to join the EU for the last ten years, with no avail. In the latest trust attack, Turkey has accused Germany of failing to deal with a German non-governmental organization that has been funding terrorism. This accusation by Turkey representatives led to a bitter argument especially because there was no clear evidence given. The mistrust on the way the judiciary has been implemented in the newer member states continue to cause controversy. For instance, according to the Ecnomist (2013), the Romanian government was forced to sign an agreement in which it agreed to reform its judiciary. This, however, does not guarantee that the Romanian Judiciary will be able to meet the requirements of the EU, and the results of the agreement remains to be seen. The agreement was signed after the ruling party won an election. However, the landslide victory of the ruling party is to be followed by an uncertain future as the ruling party has to deal with EU issues (The Economist, 2012). After the elections, the main task for the Romanian government will be to see the accession to EU (Bideleux, 2006, p.177). There has been an attempt to unify the legal systems of all the members and the EU jurisprudential platforms (Policcino, 2010), and Romania as well as the other newer states have to conform to these. There are two main factors with regard to this EU ambition. First, it is the issue of whether this is achievable in a way, or it is just another unrealistic European ambition. Secondly, there is the question of if it is a selfish ambition by some of the more conservative founding members to be able to assimilate the new members. The main role of EU is not to consolidate the different member states into one country but to make economic relations easier and better, the requirement for new, especially the ex-communist members to align their laws with EU legal platform which is based on the legal platform of most of the founding members may be received with mistrust and lack of confidence by the newer members. These newer members may feel that they are being used to be assimilated not only in the economic front but at the sociopolitical front. On the other hand, it is not only the older members who have trust issues with the new members. The older conservative members have also been the recipients of mistrust by the new members. This has created tensions within the EU and the members continue to look at each other with suspicion. In fact, it is not just the official of EU who has this kind of mistrust. According to a study done by Baldwin (2008), there is a general decrease of morale as to whether the EU should continue to expand to new countries; this study showed that the citizens of all of the EU member states have developed a general apathy with regard to the expansion of the EU. This increasing apathy has been as a result of the fact that these citizens are no longer sure about how well the EU can help them, especially with where EU officials have used this platform to play politics with each other (Pawel and Kaina, 2012, p.88). According to Best, Christiansen and Settembrini (2008, p.59), this issue has not always been the same, and it has continually increased to be an issue with the EU members, especially as citizens start to ask questions of the use of EU and whether it increases their standard of living. In fact, according to Anderson, O'Dowd and Wilson (2003, p.38), the purpose of the European Union was not to make one federal state like the united states, but to create a multinational cartel to gain economic power and redistribute this among its members while affording them to retain a reasonable level of sovereignty. One of the main issues is that the Bulgarian and the Romanian governments may be running on different kinds of the legal system such as Romania which is a unitary government (Tanchev, E. et al, 2008, p.177). The economic system With regard to the economic system, there are differences in the attitude that each of the members of the EU have and believe that the economy should be governed (Jovanović, 2005, p.37). With regard to the economic system, there are a number of issues which have remained contentious. With regard to the economic system, the main issue that the EU is facing is that the ex-communist members are not as willing to implement a capitalist economy that is directed by the fair market forces. Free trade Bulgaria and Romani a have been the two main member countries that have been at the receiving end of the trust issue sin EU. Germany is the more conservative EU member, and it has been having trust issues with new member of the EU, especially those from east Europe who are former members of the soviet union. This mistrust can be seen in the recent issue where the two nations (Romania and Bulgaria) were seeking to get a pass for the free pass admission in the EU (Gallagher, 2009, p.78). This would see the citizens of these two countries being able to travel through the EU countries without needing a travel document. The two countries were looking to achieve this as this would ease their citizens to conduct business easily around the EU zone. However, this dream was cut shot and will remain in the pipeline because there are those EU members who are still not willing to give their approval of the two members (Bigo, et al, 2000, pp.1-30). Germany has been in the front line as a conservative EU member that has issues with the new members and in the last application by Bulgaria and Romania to be passport free, Germany and Finland (another conservative member), were the first to refuse to give consent (The Econmist, 2013). Movements of the citizens is a serious issue and refusing to offer member states free pass can be a hindrance to the very importance of the union (Corry, 1996). However, the fact that most of the other founding members may not trust ex-communist members such as Romania to contain their crime may mean that they will continue to exert pressure on the Romanian government in order to secure their borders (Papadimitriou, 2008, p.132). With regard to the Romania-EU negotiations, the pace of the negotiations will be affected by a number of factors such as the Romanian judicial structures as well as the attitude of the negotiator (Phinnemore, 2006). In other places like Bulgaria, the trust issue has spilled over to the citizens who feel that they may be disadvantaged if Bulgaria is fully integrated into the EU (Eоргиев, 2007, p.138). Conclusion It is abundantly evident that there is an issue of trust among the EU nations. Most of these trust issues have revolved around legal structures, with the older EU members failing to trust the newer members on their willingness to collaborate in making EU a crime free and corruption free zone. This mistrust has heightened the intensions and has threatens to thwart the mandate of the EU, especially at this time when the EU is having economic problems. The EU has been seen to turn into a political platform on which representatives from member states are playing their political games. This increased political gaming has made it harder for newer members to trust older members. It has also been established that there may be a lag of the will willingness for aspiring members to join the EU. It is extremely beneficial, and viral that the EU solve the issues of trust before these issues reduce the union into just a political machine rather than a union able to provide its members with economical and police leverage against the rest of the world. This, however, would have to mean that each member will be more willing to participate in genuine collaboration. It would also mean that they will be willing to give up some of their prejudices in order to have a platform they can use as a middle ground. This is increasingly crucial for these nations, and they must be able to look at it before it is too late for the union. 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