The EEC and the EAEC

The treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), as well as the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) were signed in Rome on 25 March 1957. The agreements which entered into force on 1 January 1958 are better known as the Treaties of Rome. So this year on the 25th of March the European Family can blow 50 candles.

We could perhaps pause and dwell on the achievements of the European Union: 50 years without the clash of arms amongst the countries which now make up the EU; the enlargement of the EU family to 27 countries; freedom for people and for goods to move across national borders; a single market and a free trade area, and last but not the least, a single currency shared by the majority of the EU’s citizens, the Euro. One may conclude that the Treaties of Rome did serve a useful purpose.

While revelry accompanied by champagne might cloud our view for a while, when sobriety returns, one can clearly see that the future confronts us with some fundamental challenges. Challenges which even the most enlightened minds could not anticipate 50 years ago.

Demographic Challenge

Life expectancy of EU citizens at birth has increased due to better life conditions and medical progress. In the countries of today’s EU-25, a newborn girl can expect to live for over 81 years (1960: below 73 years), a new born baby boy for about 75 years (1960: 67 years). At the same time the total fertility rate has declined from a level of above 2.5 in the early 1960s to a level of about 1.5 in 1995, where it has remained since. For comparison one might consider that in the more developed parts of the world today, a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the replacement level i.e. the level at which a population would remain stable in the long run if there was no inward or outward migration. The increase in life expectancy and the decrease in birth rate has resulted in an ageing EU population. People of 60 years of age and older made up 21.7% of the total population in 2004, as against 14.8% in 1960. This evolution has serious implications for health, benefit and pension systems.

Even though there are fewer births, the total population of the countries of EU is growing. This is because of international migration which from the beginning of the 1990s has become the major force of population growth.

Environmental Issues

Global warming as a result of the emission of greenhouse gases is a threat to the natural environment, in Europe but also outside Europe. An Inconvenient Truth, a film by Davis Guggenheim, has confronted us again with reality. Although they have been on the increase since the year 2000, the emission of greenhouse gases in Europe in 2003 was 1.7% lower than in the Kyoto Protocol base year (1990) and the Kyoto target for the EU-15 is – 8%, to be reached by 2008-12.

We live in a globalizing world. This means first and foremost that the EU has to compete with the rising economic powers outside Europe. To put this in perspective, while the proportion of imports from the United States has remained stable, accounting for 13.9% of the total imports in 2005, China has risen to be the second largest supplier of goods to the EU-25, with a 13.4% share of imports in 2005, ahead of Russia and Japan.

Constitutional Affairs

Now the European Union has 27 members. To keep all things workable, the EU decided to work out a European Constitution and to present this to the member states for approval. As is well known, France and the Netherlands have rejected the document. EU leaders recognised that part of the reason the vote failed is that EU citizens feel ill- informed about Europe and excluded from its decision- taking. Therefore the EU will have to strengthen its contact with her citizens in order to become an open, democratic and transparent EU.

Jenoff Van Hulle is International Relations Officer of the European Humanist Federation