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The European Union turns fifty this year. The Treaty of Rome of 1957 created an European Economic Community that went on to become the EU we know today. Analysis of the EU usually focuses only on the political and legal processes. This issue of Corporate Watch takes a look at how private business has fared
under the EU, and how corporations use the union to further their interests.

For this issue Corporate Watch has teamed up with our friends in Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), who monitor corporate-EU relations from their base in Amsterdam. For more on CEO, see 'Spying Through the Euro Lies' on page 9.

BASIC FACTS
EU area: 4,324,782 sq km - about half as big as the USA or China.
EU population: 490,426,000 – bigger than the 301,139,000 for the US but less than half of China's 1,321,851,000.

Political structure

President of the European Commission: chosen by the EU governments and conformed by the EU Parliament every five years. Current president, Jose Manuel Duraco Barroso (elected 22 November 2004).

European Commission: one member appointed by each member country. Each commissioner is responsible for one or more policy areas (chosen by the President), rather than representing his/her home country. The EU Parliament votes to approve the slate of Commissioners, and can also force them to resign through a vote of no confidence. Based in Brussels.
European Parliament: Elected every 5 years by a direct vote of the population of member countries. Based in Strasbourg and Brussels.

Council of the EU: Made up of ministers from EU member countries; different ministers meet depending on the topic or 'configuration' – e.g. foreign ministers for 'General Affairs and External Relations' and finance/treasury ministers for 'Economic and Financial Affairs Council' configuration, also known as Ecofin. 'EU summit' meetings are EU Council meetings formed of presidents and prime ministers of member countries.

Other institutions
Court of Justice of the European Communities: interprets EU law. The judges are appointed by member states. It is based in Luxembourg.
The Court of Auditors: audits the collection and spending of EU funds.
European Economic and Social Committee: designed to allow access to the EU process by 'civil society', which in practise means employers' groups, big trade unions and professionals.
Committee of the Regions: made up of representatives of localgovernment from EU countries, weighted by size(e.g. the UK gets 24 and Ireland 9). Appointed every four years by member states and approved by the EU Council.
European Central Bank: manages the Euro, setting interest rates and so on.
European Investment Bank: Lends money for projects that further EU interests EU. For example, in Asia and Latin America the EIB will lend 3.8 billion Euros to various projects, including wood pulp factories in Brazil and oil and gas development in China.

Corporate European Observatory is a European-based research and campaign group targeting the threats to democracy, equity, social justice and the environment posed by the economic and political power of corporations and their lobby groups.´
www.corporateeurope.org
De Wittenstraat 25 1052 AK Amsterdam Netherlands tel: +31-20-6127023 fax: +31-20-6869558