Member state of the European Union

The European Union consists of 28 member states that include:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom

All of the member states have de jure equal rights, de jure describes practices that are legally recognised, whether or not the practices exist in reality.

Membership of the European Union is open to any European country that is a stable, free-market liberal democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law. It has to be willing to accept all the obligations of membership, such as adopting all previously agreed law and switching to the euro.


EU's predecessor, the European Economic Community was founded in 1957 and it had only six core states - Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany.


Copenhagen criteria

Rules that define whether a country is eligible to join the European Union.
The criteria require that a state has human rights and the institutions to preserve democratic governance, accepts the obligations and intent of the EU, has a functioning market economy. To join the EU, the state must fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. For example, the youngest EU state is Croatia and it had to fulfil the economic and political requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria.

What is the European Court of Justice?

It is the institution of the European Union that encompasses the whole judiciary, and it consists of two major courts:

European Court of Justice - hears applications from national courts for preliminary rulings, annulment and appeals. It consists of 11 advocates general and one judge from each EU member country.

General Court - hears applications for an annulment from companies, national governments and, less commonly, individuals. It is made up of 47 judges, which will be increased to 56 in 2019.

The purpose of the European Court of Justice

European Court of Justice reviews the legality of actions taken by the EU's institutions, enforces compliance by member states with their obligations under the Treaties, and interprets European Union law.

The idea of ​​European Union law is that each Member State incorporates the principles laid down by Union law in its legislation. The Court is responsible for ensuring that the interpretation is complied with in the law and in the application of the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and the competent Community institutions. In order for the court to carry out this task, the Court has a wide jurisdiction to hear different the Court of Justice is, inter alia, competent to rule on applications for annulment or failure to act, for failure to act, for references for a preliminary ruling, and appeals against the General Court lodged with a Member State or institutions.