1.
Oslo
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Oslo is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality, founded in the year 1040, and established as a kaupstad or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada, the city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814, after being destroyed by a fire in 1624, the city was moved closer to Akershus Fortress during the reign of Christian IV of Denmark and renamed Christiania in his honour. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838, following a spelling reform, it was known as Kristiania from 1877 to 1925, at which time its original Norwegian name was restored. Oslo is the economic and governmental centre of Norway, the city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It is an important centre for industries and maritime trade in Europe. The city is home to companies within the maritime sector, some of which are among the worlds largest shipping companies, shipbrokers. Oslo is a city of the Council of Europe and the European Commission intercultural cities programme. Oslo is considered a city and ranked Beta World City in studies carried out by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group. It was ranked one in terms of quality of life among European large cities in the European Cities of the Future 2012 report by fDi magazine. A survey conducted by ECA International in 2011 placed Oslo as the second most expensive city in the world for living expenses after Tokyo. In 2013 Oslo tied with the Australian city of Melbourne as the fourth most expensive city in the world, as of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, while the population of the citys urban area was 942,084. The metropolitan area had an population of 1.71 million. The population was during the early 2000 increasing at record rates and this growth stems for the most part from international immigration and related high birth rates, but also from intra-national migration. The immigrant population in the city is growing faster than the Norwegian population. As of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, the urban area extends beyond the boundaries of the municipality into the surrounding county of Akershus, the total population of this agglomeration is 942,084. To the north and east, wide forested hills rise above the city giving the location the shape of a giant amphitheatre. The urban municipality of Oslo and county of Oslo are two parts of the entity, making Oslo the only city in Norway where two administrative levels are integrated
2.
Social democracy
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In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. By 1868–1869, Marxism had become the official theoretical basis of the first social democratic party established in Europe, in this period, social democracy became associated with reformist socialism. The origins of social democracy have been traced to the 1860s, with the rise of the first major party in Europe. 1864 saw the founding of the International Workingmens Association, also known as the First International, another issue in the First International was the role of reformism. Although Lassalle was not a Marxist, he was influenced by the theories of Marx and Engels, however unlike Marxs and Engelss The Communist Manifesto, Lassalle promoted class struggle in a more moderate form. While Marx viewed the state negatively as an instrument of class rule that should only exist temporarily upon the rise to power of the proletariat and then dismantled, Lassalle accepted the state. Lassalle viewed the state as a means through which workers could enhance their interests, Lassalles strategy was primarily electoral and reformist, with Lassalleans contending that the working class needed a political party that fought above all for universal adult male suffrage. The ADAVs party newspaper was called Der Sozialdemokrat, Marx and Engels responded to the title Sozialdemocrat with distaste, Engels once writing, But what a title, Sozialdemokrat. Why dont they simply call it The Proletarian. Marx agreed with Engels that Sozialdemokrat was a bad title, there was a Marxist faction within the ADAV represented by Wilhelm Liebknecht who became one of the editors of the Die Sozialdemokrat. Friction in the ADAV arose over Lassalles policy of an approach to Bismarck that had assumed incorrectly that Bismarck in turn would be friendly towards them. This approach was opposed by the partys Marxists, including Liebknecht, opposition in the ADAV to Lassalles friendly approach to Bismarcks government resulted in Liebknecht resigning from his position as editor of Die Sozialdemokrat and leaving the ADAV in 1865. Though the SDAP was not officially Marxist, it was the first major organization to be led by Marxists and Marx. The party adopted stances similar to those adopted by Marx at the First International, there was intense rivalry and antagonism between the SDAP and the ADAV, with the SDAP being highly hostile to the Prussian government while the ADAV pursued a reformist and more cooperative approach. In spite of such militant rhetoric to appeal to the working class, in 1875 Marx attacked the Gotha Program that became the program of Social Democratic Party of Germany in the same year in his Critique of the Gotha Program. Marx was not optimistic that Germany at the time was not open to a means to achieve socialism. In addition he noticed a change over the relations between the two classes. The Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 make an approach to universal suffrage. The Fabian Society was founded as a group from the Fellowship of the New Life due to opposition within that group to socialism
3.
Party of European Socialists
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The Party of European Socialists is a social-democratic European political party. The PES comprises national-level political parties primarily from states of the European Union. The PES member parties are mostly members of the Progressive Alliance or Socialist International. The political group in the European Parliament of the PES is the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the PES also operates in the Committee of the Regions and the European Council. The PES is currently led by Sergei Stanishev, former Prime Minister of Bulgaria, the partys English name is Party of European Socialists. The Socialists 1962 congress pushed for greater democratisation and powers for Parliament though it was only in 1969 that this possibility was examined by the member states, in 1973, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the European Community bringing in new parties from these countries. The enlarged Socialist Congress met in Bonn and inaugurated the Confederation of the Socialist Parties of the European Community, the Congress also passed a resolution on social policy, including the right to decent work, social security, democracy and equality in the European economy. In 1978, the Confederation of Socialist Parties approved the first common European election Manifesto, the Luxembourg Congress approved the first Statue of the Confederation of Socialist Parties in 1980. The accession of Greece in 1981, followed by Spain and Portugal in 1986 brought in more parties, in 1984 another common Socialist election manifesto was approved at a congress in Luxembourg. In 2004 Poul Nyrup Rasmussen defeated Giuliano Amato to be elected President of the PES and he was re-elected for a further 2.5 years at the PES Congress in Porto on 8 December 2006 and for another 2.5 years at the Prague Congress in 2009. In 2010, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies was founded as the foundation of the PES. The Party of European Socialists held its latest Congress in Brussels on 28–29 September 2012 and these congresses are organized every two and a half years, once during the year of the elections for the European Parliament, and once at mid-term. The same Congress elected Achim Post as new Secretary General, the congress also adopted a process presented by the PES as more democratic and transparent for the selection of their candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission in 2014. Presidents of the Party of European Socialists and its predecessors, there are thirty-three full member parties from all the twenty-eight member states and Norway. There are a further thirteen associate and twelve observer parties, PES is an associated organisation of the Socialist International. Young European Socialists is the organisation of PES and PES Women is the partys womens organisation. The parties meet at the party Congress twice every five years to decide on political orientation, every year that the Congress does not meet, the Council shapes PES policy. The Congress also elects the partys President, Vice Presidents and the Presidency and they may also be joined by the President of the European Parliament, a PES European Commissioner and a representative from associate parties and organisations
4.
Storting
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The Storting is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. The unicameral parliament has 169 members, and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation in nineteen plural member constituencies, a member of the Storting is known in Norwegian as a Stortingsrepresentant, literally Storting representative. The assembly is led by a president and, since 2009 five vice presidents — the presidium, the members are allocated to twelve standing committees, as well as four procedural committees. Three ombudsmen are directly subordinate to parliament, the Parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Committee, in 2009, qualified unicameralism was replaced by unicameralism, through the dissolution of the two chambers, the Lagting and the Odelsting. Since 2013 Olemic Thommessen has been president, the alltings were where legal and political matters were discussed. As oral laws became codified and Norway unified as an entity in the 10th century. The Parliament of Norway Building opened in 1866, on 27 June 1940 the presidium signed an appeal to King Haakon, about his abdication. In September 1940 the representatives were summoned to Oslo, and voted in favour of the results of the negotiations between the presidium and the authorities of the German invaders, however, directives from Adolf Hitler resulted in the obstruction of the agreement of cooperation between parliament and occupation force. Although the Storting has always been unicameral, until 2009 it would divide itself into two departments in legislative matters. After elections, the Storting would elect a quarter of its membership to form the Lagting a sort of upper house, the division was also used on very rare occasions in cases of impeachment. The original idea in 1814 was probably to have the Lagting act as an upper house. Bills were submitted by the Government to the Odelsting or by a member of the Odelsting, a standing committee, with members from both the Odelsting and Lagting, would then consider the bill, and in some cases hearings were held. If passed by the Odelsting, the bill would be sent to the Lagting for review or revision, most bills were passed unamended by the Lagting and then sent directly to the king for royal assent. If the Lagting amended the Odelstings decision, the bill would be sent back to the Odelsting, if the Odelsting approved the Lagtings amendments, the bill would be signed into law by the King. If it did not, then the bill would return to the Lagting, if the Lagting still proposed amendments, the bill would be submitted a plenary session of the Storting. In order to be passed, the bill should have then had the approval of a majority of the plenary session. In all other cases a majority would suffice. Three days had to pass between each time a department voted on a bill, in all other cases, such as taxes and appropriations, the Storting would meet in plenary sessions
5.
Politics of Norway
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Politics in Norway take place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the Kings council, the cabinet, legislative power is vested in both the government and the Storting, elected within a multi-party system. The Judiciary is independent of the branch and the legislature. The Norwegian constitution, signed by the Eidsvoll assembly on 17 May 1814, the 1814 constitution granted rights such as freedom of speech and rule of law. This parliamentary rule has the status of constitutional custom, all new laws are passed and all new governments are therefore formed de jure by the King, although not de facto. Changes to the Court of Impeachment, parliamentary system now part of the Constitution Norway is a constitutional monarchy, where the King has a mainly symbolic power. The Royal House is a branch of the family of Glücksburg. The functions of the King, Harald V, are mainly ceremonial, although the constitution of 1814 grants important executive powers to the King, these are always exercised by the Council of State in the name of the King. The King is also High Protector of the Church of Norway, Grand Master of The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, the Council of State is formally convened by the reigning monarch. The Council of State consists of a Prime Minister and his/her council, parliamentarism has evolved since 1884 and entails that the cabinet must not have the parliament against it, and that the appointment by the King is a formality. The council must have the confidence of the Norwegian legislative body, in practice, the monarch will ask the leader of a parliamentary block that has a majority in the Storting to form a government. After elections resulting in no clear majority to any party or coalition, since World War II, most non-Socialist governments have been coalitions, and Labour Party governments have often relied on the support of other parties to retain the necessary parliamentary votes. Labour formed their first brief minority government in 1928 which lasted for 18 days only, after the 1936 election the Labour Party formed a new minority government, which had to go into exile 1940–45 because of the German occupation of Norway. After a brief trans-party government following the German capitulation in 1945, Norway was ruled by Labour governments from 1945 to 1981, except for three periods. The Labour Party had a party majority in the Storting from 1945 to 1961. Since then no party has formed a majority government, hence minority. From 1981 to 1997, governments alternated between minority Labour governments and Conservative-led centre-right governments, the centre-right governments gained power in 3 out of 4 elections during this period, whereas Labour toppled those governments twice between elections and stayed in power after one election. Elections take place in September and governments change in October of election years, Conservative leader Kåre Willoch formed a minority government after the election of 1981
6.
Communist International
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The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization that advocated world communism. The Comintern had seven World Congresses between 1919 and 1935 and it also had thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. The Comintern was officially dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1943, while the differences had been evident for decades, World War I proved the issue that finally divided the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers movement. The socialist movement had been historically antimilitarist and internationalist, and therefore opposed workers serving as fodder for the bourgeois governments at war. This especially since the Triple Alliance comprised two empires, while the Triple Entente gathered France and Britain into an alliance with Russia, karl Marxs The Communist Manifesto had stated that the working class has no country and exclaimed Proletarians of all countries, unite. Massive majorities voted in favor of resolutions for the Second International to call upon the working class to resist war if it were declared. Nevertheless, within hours of the declarations of war, almost all the socialist parties of the combatant states announced their support for the war, the only exceptions were the socialist parties of the Balkans. To Lenins surprise, even the Social Democratic Party of Germany voted in favor of war credits, Socialist parties in neutral countries mostly supported neutrality rather than total opposition to the war. The International divided into a left and a reformist right. Lenin condemned much of the center as social-pacifists for several reasons, Lenins term social-pacifist aimed in particular at Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Independent Labour Party in Britain, who opposed the war on grounds of pacifism, but did not actively resist it. Discredited by its passivity towards world events, the Second International dissolved in the middle of the war in 1916, the victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 was felt throughout the world. An alternative path to power to parliamentary politics was demonstrated, with much of Europe on the verge of economic and political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of the Great War, revolutionary sentiments were widespread. The Bolsheviks believed that required a new international to ferment revolution in Europe. The Comintern was founded at a Congress held in Moscow March 2–6,1919, there were 52 delegates present from 34 parties. They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of the most important sections, the Congress decided that the Executive Committee would elect a five-member bureau to run the daily affairs of the International. However, such a bureau was not formed and Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balabanoff, acting as the secretary of the International, Victor L. Kibaltchitch and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin. Lenin, Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai presented material, the main topic of discussion was the difference between bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The central policy of the Comintern under Lenins leadership was that Communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution, in this period, the Comintern was promoted as the General Staff of the World Revolution
7.
Jens Stoltenberg
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Jens Stoltenberg is a Norwegian politician, and the 13th Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001, Stoltenberg was first elected to Parliament in 1993 for the Oslo constituency, and is a member of the Labour Party. He served as State Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment from 1990 to 1991, while in parliamentary opposition, Stoltenberg served in the standing committee on energy affairs. He became the Parliamentary Leader and Prime Minister candidate for the Labour Party in February 2000, Stoltenberg was appointed Prime Minister in March 2000, following a motion of no confidence against Bondeviks First Cabinet. The policies of the first Stoltenberg cabinet instituted the most widespread privatisation by any Norwegian government to that date, Stoltenberg was re-elected in 2009 for a second term as Prime Minister, and then lost the election for a third term in 2013. Stoltenberg submitted his resignation on 14 October 2013, and left two days later. From 2013, Stoltenberg served as a United Nations special envoy on climate change and he has chaired the UN High-Level Panel on System Wide Coherence and the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. In March 2014, he was appointed by NATOs North Atlantic Council to be the Secretary General, Stoltenberg has been described as a cautious politician, belonging to the right wing of social democracy. In foreign policy, Stoltenberg has been a proponent of Norwegian membership in the European Union. In security policy, Stoltenberg favours increased military spending and dialogue, Jens Stoltenberg was born 16 March 1959 in Oslo, Norway, into the Stoltenberg family, whose name is derived from Stoltenberg in northern Germany. His father, Thorvald Stoltenberg, was a prominent Labour party politician who served as ambassador, as defence minister and his mother, Karin Stoltenberg, was a geneticist who served as state secretary in multiple governments during the 1980s. Marianne Heiberg, married to former Foreign Minister Johan Jørgen Holst, was his maternal aunt, Jens lived in Serbia from 1960 to 1963 while his father was Ambassador to Yugoslavia. Stoltenberg attended primary school at Oslo Waldorf School, and upper school at Oslo Cathedral School. He served his military service with the Armys Infantry Training Centre at Evjemoen in Aust-Agder. After leaving the army, Stoltenberg enrolled at the University of Oslo, the title of his thesis was Makroøkonomisk planlegging under usikkerhet. Stoltenbergs first steps into politics came in his teens, when he was influenced by his sister Camilla. Opposition to the Vietnam War was his triggering motivation, following heavy bombing raids against the North Vietnamese port city of Hai Phong at the end of the Vietnam War, he participated in protest rallies targeting the United States Embassy in Oslo. On at least one occasion embassy windows were broken by stone-throwing protesters, several of Stoltenbergs friends were arrested by the police after these events
8.
Tony Blair
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Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and the Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. From 1983 to 2007, Blair was the MP for Sedgefield, under Blairs leadership, the party used the phrase New Labour, to distance it from previous Labour policies and the traditional conception of socialism. Critics of Blair denounced him for having the Labour Party abandon genuine socialism, in May 1997, the Labour Party won a landslide general election victory, the largest in its history, allowing Blair, at 43 years old, to become the youngest Prime Minister since 1812. In September 1997, Blair attained early personal popularity, receiving a 93% public approval rating, the Labour Party went on to win two more elections under his leadership, in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory, and in 2005, with a reduced majority. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blairs government introduced the National Minimum Wage Act, Human Rights Act, Blairs government also devolved power, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly. In Northern Ireland, Blair was involved in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Blair has faced strong criticism for his role in the invasion of Iraq, including calls for having him tried for war crimes and waging a war of aggression. In 2016, the Iraq Inquiry strongly criticised his actions and described the invasion of Iraq as unjustified, Blair also intervened militarily in Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Blair was succeeded as the leader of the Labour Party and as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown in June 2007. On the day that Blair resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East and he now runs a consultancy business and has set up various foundations in his own name, including the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 6 May 1953 and he was the second son of Leo and Hazel Blair. Leo Blair was the son of two entertainers and adopted as a baby by Glasgow shipyard worker James Blair and his wife. Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher, in 1923 he returned to Ballyshannon, County Donegal. In Ballyshannon Corscaddens wife, Sarah Margaret, gave birth above the grocery shop to Blairs mother. Blair has one brother, Sir William Blair, a High Court judge. Blairs first home was with his family at Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh, during this period, his father worked as a junior tax inspector whilst also studying for a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. Blairs first relocation was when he was 19 months old, at the end of 1954 Blairs parents and their two sons moved from Paisley Terrace to Adelaide, South Australia. His father lectured in law at the University of Adelaide and it was when in Australia that Blairs sister Sarah was born. The Blairs lived in the suburb of Dulwich close to the university, the family returned to the UK in summer 1958
9.
Neoliberalism
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Neoliberalism refers primarily to the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These market-based ideas and the policies they inspired constitute a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus which lasted from 1945 to 1980, as such, neoliberalism shares many attributes with other contested concepts, including democracy. The definition and usage of the term have changed over time, in the 1960s, usage of the term neoliberal heavily declined. When the term was reintroduced in the 1980s in connection with Augusto Pinochets economic reforms in Chile, once the new meaning of neoliberalism was established as a common usage among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. By 1994, with the passage of NAFTA and the Zapatistas reaction to development in Chiapas. Scholarship on the phenomenon of neoliberalism has been growing, the impact of the global 2008–2009 crisis has also given rise to new scholarship that critiques neoliberalism and seeks developmental alternatives. In 1938 at the Colloque Walter Lippmann, the term neoliberalism was proposed, among other terms, the colloquium defined the concept of neoliberalism as involving the priority of the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, and a strong and impartial state. To be neoliberal meant advocating an economic policy with state intervention. Neoliberal state interventionism brought a clash with the opposing camp of classical liberals. Although Hayek had intellectual ties to the German neoliberals, his name was occasionally mentioned in conjunction with neoliberalism during this period due to his more pro-free market stance. During the military rule under Augusto Pinochet in Chile, opposition scholars took up the expression to describe the economic reforms implemented there, once this new meaning was established among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy. Another center-left movement from modern American liberalism that used the term neoliberalism to describe its ideology formed in the United States in the 1970s, according to David Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians included Al Gore and Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party of the United States. The neoliberals coalesced around two magazines, the New Republic and the Washington Monthly, the godfather of this version of neoliberalism was the journalist Charles Peters who in 1983 published A Neoliberals Manifesto. Neoliberal theory argues that a market will allow efficiency, economic growth, income distribution. Any state intervention to encourage these phenomena will worsen economic performance, yet the handbook argues to view the term as merely a pejorative or radical political slogan is to reduce its capacity as an analytic frame. If neoliberalism is to serve as a way of understanding the transformation of society over the last few decades then the concept is in need of unpacking. Other scholars note that neoliberalism is associated with the policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. There are several usages of the term that can be identified, As a development model
10.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
11.
European Union
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The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU operates through a system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community, the community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the basis of the EU. The EU as a whole is the largest economy in the world, additionally,27 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7, because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. These men and others are credited as the Founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome and they also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958, the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand, Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power, Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission. In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland, Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum
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