[Music] the European Union as we now know it today came about through a number of treaties or agreements between European countries after the horror of World War II people wanted to find ways to ensure future peace and cooperation between the different countries in Europe so in the late 1940s the idea of a European Community was discussed Europe can only be United by the heartfelt wish and V expression of the great majority then in 1951 the First Union was formed between six countries Belgium the Netherlands Luxembourg Italy France and West Germany they agreed to work together on production of coal and steel materials that were essential for rebuilding military forces they felt that by working together it would help avoid any more Wars between the [Music] countries by 1957 these countries felt the union was going so well they decided to take things further they set up the European economic Community or [Music] eec this aimed to make it easier to buy and sell a wide range of goods not just coal and steel throughout the six countries that were members it also tried to make it easier for people to travel live and work within these countries soon other countries wanted to join the eec and the membership started to grow some people in Europe were against their country's joining and protested to keep their independence then as now any country that wanted to join had to apply and the existing members decided whether to let them join or not not the UK applied and after being turned down twice finally joined in 1973 it is a step towards the participation of the peoples of our countries as the eec grew in size they worked on ways to make it better in 1986 our prime minister at that time Margaret Thatcher signed the single European act which further reduced barriers to trade between the different [Music] countries however not everyone was in agreement with the UK's close relationship with the European Community for example this headline appeared in the Sun newspaper in 1990 they chose to run this headline because some people in the UK felt that Jac delore president of the European commission was meddling too much in UK affairs in 1993 the mastri treaty officially renamed the eec as the European Union and introduced more cooperation between governments in areas like defense and Justice they also set out plans to bring the economies of the member countries closer together in 2002 the Euro was born currencies like French Franks Dutch gilders and Italian lra all became history and the Euro became the currency of 12 EU countries with only the UK Denmark and Sweden choosing to keep to their own currency countries continue to join the European Union and in 2004 we saw the biggest ever single enlargement of the EU when 10 countries joined while membership continues to grow there is still debate in many countries about the advantages and disadvantages of working together in this way with nearly 30 countries now members and more wanting to join the challenge of the future will be to make sure that as the European Union gets bigger it still works for the good of the people who live and work in it [Music]