20 Facts About EU

The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation.

Additionally, all EU states have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme.

Essential for the actual birth of the institutions of the EU was the Schuman Declaration on 9 May 1950 and the decision by six nations to follow Schuman and draft the Treaty of Paris.

In 2004, the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the union.

EU's population is highly urbanised: some 75 per cent of inhabitants lived in urban areas in 2006.

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The EU contains about 40 urban areas with populations of over 1million.

In 2012, English was the most widely spoken language in the EU, being understood by 51 per cent of the EU population when counting both native and non-native speakers.

Across the EU, belief was higher among women, older people, those with religious upbringing, those who left school at 15 or 16, and those "positioning themselves on the right of the political scale".

EU has some of the highest levels of life expectancy in the world, with Spain, Italy, Sweden, France, Malta, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Greece all among the world's top 20 countries with the highest life expectancy.

The EU has legal personality, with the right to sign agreements and international treaties.

EU operates a competition policy intended to ensure undistorted competition within the single market.

The EU has promoted human rights issues in the wider world.

The EU opposes the death penalty and has proposed its worldwide abolition.

Coordinator and representative of the CFSP within the EU is the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy who speaks on behalf of the EU in foreign policy and defence matters, and has the task of articulating the positions expressed by the member states on these fields of policy into a common alignment.

EU forces have been deployed on peacekeeping missions from middle and northern Africa to the western Balkans and western Asia.

EU has sought to coordinate the social security and health systems of member states to facilitate individuals exercising free movement rights and to ensure they maintain their ability to access social security and health services in other member states.

In 2007, member states agreed that, in the future, 20 per cent of the energy used across the EU must be renewable, and carbon dioxide emissions have to be lower in 2020 by at least 20 per cent compared to 1990 levels.

EU has adopted an emissions trading system to incorporate carbon emissions into the economy.

Basic education is an area where the EU's role is limited to supporting national governments.

The anthem of the EU is an instrumental version of the prelude to the Ode to Joy, the 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony.