48 Fun Facts About European Union

Which is the European Union's smallest member state by population?

Malta: with over half a million people it still elects six MEPs, the minimum the EU treaties guarantee every member state.

The treaty that formally established the European Union in 1993 is named after which Dutch city?

Maastricht: the treaty also set the entry rules for a single currency, including limits of 3% of GDP on budget deficits and 60% on government debt.

In which city did six countries sign the 1957 treaty founding the European Economic Community?

Rome: the treaty signed there in March 1957 committed the six to abolishing customs duties between them and building common policies on farming, transport and trade.

Which founding member of the European Economic Community had Bonn as its capital when it signed the 1957 treaty?

West Germany: when Germany reunified in October 1990, the former East simply became Community territory, and no new member state joined.

Europe Day, on 9 May, marks a 1950 declaration by which French foreign minister?

Robert Schuman: his proposal aimed to make war between France and its old enemy 'not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible'.

The 1951 Treaty of Paris pooled which two industries, judged essential for waging war?

Coal and steel: unlike later EU treaties, it was written to last only half a century, so the community it created expired in July 2002.

Which Frenchman from a cognac-merchant family, never elected to office, is called 'the Father of Europe'?

Jean Monnet: though he left school at 16 to sell his family's cognac, France moved his remains to the Panthéon in 1988, on the centenary of his birth.

The 1965 Merger Treaty gave the shared institutions of Europe's three founding bodies what collective name?

European Communities: from July 1967 the three bodies shared a single Commission and a single Council, though each stayed legally independent.

Which three countries joined the EEC in its first enlargement, in 1973?

Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom: Britain got in only after French president Charles de Gaulle, who had vetoed its entry, left office in 1969.

Which country joined the EEC in 1981, becoming its tenth member?

Greece: it applied just a year after its military junta fell in 1974, and joining helped consolidate the country's restored democracy.

Which territory left the European club in 1985 after a dispute over fishing rights?

Greenland: it left largely over control of its fish, yet the same year it signed a fisheries deal, renewed ever since, that lets EU boats fish there for payments.

Which country was the most populous of the ten that joined the EU in its record 2004 enlargement?

Poland: with over 36 million people it was by far the largest newcomer, in an enlargement meant to end the division of Europe that followed the Second World War.

Which country became the 28th EU member state when it joined in July 2013?

Croatia: a decade after joining, it adopted the euro and entered the Schengen area on the same day, 1 January 2023.

The conditions a country must meet to join the EU are named after which city's 1993 summit?

Copenhagen: EU leaders set the conditions there in June 1993, when they agreed that former communist countries of central and eastern Europe could become members.

Which African country's bid to join the EEC was turned down in 1987 because it was not considered European?

Morocco: yet two Spanish cities on the African coast next door, Ceuta and Melilla, are part of the European Union.

Who led the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, driving the creation of the single market?

Jacques Delors: he also chaired the 1989 committee of central bankers that mapped the road to a single currency, which became the euro.

In the 2016 Brexit referendum, which of the UK's four nations voted most heavily to Remain?

Scotland: 62% voted Remain, and the next day its government said officials would start planning a second referendum on independence.

Which prime minister called the 2016 referendum on EU membership, then resigned after Leave won?

David Cameron: he had pledged the vote in a 2013 speech, and the morning after the result he said the country needed fresh leadership.

Which numbered clause of the Treaty on European Union sets out how a member state may leave?

Article 50: Theresa May's letter triggered it on 29 March 2017, but after repeated extensions the UK did not actually leave until 31 January 2020.

The EU treaty in force from December 2009 that created a permanent European Council president is named after which city?

Lisbon: it rescued reforms from the proposed European Constitution, which French and Dutch voters had rejected in 2005.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Danish voters scrapped which of their EU opt-outs in a 2022 referendum?

Defence: Denmark had won the opt-out after voters first rejected the treaty creating the EU in 1992, and in 2022 two-thirds voted to drop it.

Which currency did the euro replace one-for-one in 1999?

The ECU: EU leaders meeting in Madrid in 1995 chose the name euro for the single currency, dropping the term ECU that the treaty had used.

When euro coins arrived in 2002, which non-EU microstate's own versions showed Prince Rainier III?

Monaco: a monetary agreement lets it mint its own euros at the Paris Mint, and after Rainier died in 2005 its coins switched to Prince Albert II.

Italians voted by phone on most of their euro coin designs; which image did a minister pick for the €1?

Vitruvian Man: economy minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi chose Leonardo's drawing himself, as a symbol of money serving humanity rather than the reverse.

The euro banknotes, designed by Austrian Robert Kalina, show which two architectural features?

Windows or gateways and bridges: none show real structures, so between 2011 and 2013 the Dutch town of Spijkenisse built concrete copies of all seven bridges.

The euro sign is a stylised version of which letter, crossed by two lines?

E: the sign blends the Greek epsilon with the first letter of 'Europe', and its two parallel lines are meant to signify the currency's stability.

Which euro banknote did the European Central Bank leave out of its second 'Europa' series?

500: the ECB dropped it over concerns that it could facilitate illicit activities, though existing notes remain legal tender and keep their value.

Where is the European Central Bank based?

Frankfurt: the bank's headquarters incorporates the city's old wholesale market hall, where the Nazis gathered Frankfurt's Jews for deportation from 1941.

The European Parliament does most of its work in Brussels, but which French city is its official seat?

Strasbourg: France secured it as the official seat at the 1992 Edinburgh summit, so MEPs travel there for twelve plenary sessions a year.

Which Auschwitz survivor led the first directly elected European Parliament?

Simone Veil: as France's health minister she had pushed through the 1975 law that legalised abortion in France.

Which footballer's 1995 EU court victory let players switch clubs for free once their contracts ended?

Jean-Marc Bosman: his case reshaped football's transfer market, but legal costs and a stalled career left the Belgian player broke while later stars grew rich.

Who was elected president of the European Commission in 2019 and re-elected for 2024-2029?

Ursula von der Leyen: in 2019 EU leaders passed over the election's lead candidates, including her own party's Manfred Weber, and put her forward instead.

The 1985 Schengen Agreement set out to gradually abolish what between its signatory countries?

Border checks: just five of the ten EEC members signed it, and the deal stayed outside Community law until the Treaty of Amsterdam brought it into EU law.

Which two EU member states were still outside the Schengen Area at the start of 2026?

Cyprus and Ireland: Ireland opts out to keep its Common Travel Area with the UK, while Cyprus is bound by treaty to join but has not yet been fully admitted.

Which organisation originally designed and adopted the twelve-star flag in 1955?

The Council of Europe: it chose twelve stars as a symbol of perfection and entirety, so the number has nothing to do with how many countries belong.

The EU anthem is an arrangement of which composer's 'Ode to Joy'?

Beethoven: the anthem keeps his melody but drops Schiller's words, so it speaks to all Europeans in the universal language of music instead of one tongue.

What is the motto of the European Union, first used in 2000?

United in diversity: it came out of a contest in which school pupils across the then 15 member states sent in their ideas for a European motto.

How many official languages does the European Union have?

24: any MEP may speak in any of them, and every EU law is published in all of them, from Bulgarian to Swedish.

Which programme did Sofia Corradi inspire after her Italian university refused to recognise her Columbia degree?

Erasmus: Corradi, later nicknamed 'Mamma Erasmus', pushed the idea of credit for study abroad from 1969, and the programme finally launched in 1987.

Which honour was awarded to the EU as a whole in 2012?

Nobel Peace Prize: three earlier peace laureates, Desmond Tutu among them, protested in an open letter that the EU relied on military force for its security.

The EU's own satellite navigation system, live since 2016, is named after which scientist?

Copernicus is the name of the EU's Earth-observation programme; Galileo gives Europe independence from GPS and GLONASS.

As of 2025, which country was the European Union's largest source of imported goods?

China: it supplied more of the EU's imported goods than any other country, yet the United States bought far more of the EU's exports.

Which country's voters rejected the EU's 2007 reform treaty in 2008, then approved it in 2009?

Ireland: voters said yes in 2009 after EU leaders gave guarantees that the treaty would not touch Irish tax policy, military neutrality or abortion law.

Which country's voters rejected joining the EEC in 1972 and the EU in 1994, after its government had negotiated entry?

Norway: it stays outside the EU, yet as part of the European Economic Area it takes on EU single-market law and upholds the four freedoms.

Which country applied to join the EEC in 1987 and became an official EU candidate in 1999?

Turkey: membership talks opened in 2005, but in 2018 EU ministers declared them at a standstill over concerns about democracy and the rule of law.

What is the highest peak in the European Union?

Mont Blanc: surveyors re-measure its icy summit every two years because the height shifts with the snow cap, and in 2023 it stood at 4,805.59 metres.

The EU's 1994 banana quality rules are famously, and falsely, said to have banned what?

Bent bananas: the rules only sorted bananas into quality classes, and lower classes could have slight defects of shape, so no bendy banana was ever banned.

Which British prime minister won an EEC budget rebate, complaining of getting too little back from farm subsidies?

Margaret Thatcher: she won it at Fontainebleau in 1984, but in 2005 Tony Blair agreed to give up part of it to help pay for the EU's enlargement.