European Union Trivia
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48 free European Union trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
European Union trivia for politics students, quiz-night regulars, Erasmus alumni and anyone who has ever wondered why the EU flag has twelve stars when it has 27 members. This quiz begins with the origins: Robert Schuman's 1950 declaration, Jean Monnet's Coal and Steel Community, the six founders and the 1957 Treaty of Rome, then follows the project through the Merger Treaty, the Single European Act, Maastricht in 1993 and Lisbon in 2009. It covers the institutions and where they sit (Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Frankfurt), the euro's launch and the design of its notes and coins, the Schengen village on the Moselle, the Erasmus programme, the Copenhagen criteria and each wave of enlargement from 1973 to Croatia in 2013. It also handles the exits, Greenland in 1985 and the United Kingdom in 2020, plus the symbols: Ode to Joy, Europe Day and the motto chosen by schoolchildren. Questions range from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you enjoy this quiz, try our European geography, European history and NATO quizzes next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which is the European Union's smallest member state by population?
Malta
Malta: with over half a million people it still elects six MEPs, the minimum the EU treaties guarantee every member state.
Q 02The treaty that formally established the European Union in 1993 is named after which Dutch city?
Maastricht
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.
Q 03In which city did six countries sign the 1957 treaty founding the European Economic Community?
Rome
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.
Q 04Which founding member of the European Economic Community had Bonn as its capital when it signed the 1957 treaty?
West Germany
West Germany: when Germany reunified in October 1990, the former East simply became Community territory, and no new member state joined.
Q 05Europe Day, on 9 May, marks a 1950 declaration by which French foreign minister?
Robert Schuman
Robert Schuman: his proposal aimed to make war between France and its old enemy 'not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible'.
Q 06The 1951 Treaty of Paris pooled which two industries, judged essential for waging war?
Coal and steel
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.
Q 07Which Frenchman from a cognac-merchant family, never elected to office, is called 'the Father of Europe'?
Jean Monnet
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.
Q 08The 1965 Merger Treaty gave the shared institutions of Europe's three founding bodies what collective name?
European Communities
European Communities: from July 1967 the three bodies shared a single Commission and a single Council, though each stayed legally independent.
Q 09Which three countries joined the EEC in its first enlargement, in 1973?
Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom
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.
Q 10Which country joined the EEC in 1981, becoming its tenth member?
Greece
Greece: it applied just a year after its military junta fell in 1974, and joining helped consolidate the country's restored democracy.
Q 11Which territory left the European club in 1985 after a dispute over fishing rights?
Greenland
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.
Q 12Which country was the most populous of the ten that joined the EU in its record 2004 enlargement?
Poland
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.
Q 13Which country became the 28th EU member state when it joined in July 2013?
Croatia
Croatia: a decade after joining, it adopted the euro and entered the Schengen area on the same day, 1 January 2023.
Q 21After Russia invaded Ukraine, Danish voters scrapped which of their EU opt-outs in a 2022 referendum?
Defence
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.
Q 22Which currency did the euro replace one-for-one in 1999?
The ECU
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.
Q 23When euro coins arrived in 2002, which non-EU microstate's own versions showed Prince Rainier III?
Monaco
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.
Q 14The conditions a country must meet to join the EU are named after which city's 1993 summit?
Copenhagen
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.
Q 15Which African country's bid to join the EEC was turned down in 1987 because it was not considered European?
Morocco
Morocco: yet two Spanish cities on the African coast next door, Ceuta and Melilla, are part of the European Union.
Q 16Who led the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, driving the creation of the single market?
Jacques Delors
Jacques Delors: he also chaired the 1989 committee of central bankers that mapped the road to a single currency, which became the euro.
Q 17In the 2016 Brexit referendum, which of the UK's four nations voted most heavily to Remain?
Scotland
Scotland: 62% voted Remain, and the next day its government said officials would start planning a second referendum on independence.
Q 18Which prime minister called the 2016 referendum on EU membership, then resigned after Leave won?
David Cameron
David Cameron: he had pledged the vote in a 2013 speech, and the morning after the result he said the country needed fresh leadership.
Q 19Which numbered clause of the Treaty on European Union sets out how a member state may leave?
50
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.
Q 20The EU treaty in force from December 2009 that created a permanent European Council president is named after which city?
Lisbon
Lisbon: it rescued reforms from the proposed European Constitution, which French and Dutch voters had rejected in 2005.
Q 24Italians voted by phone on most of their euro coin designs; which image did a minister pick for the €1?
Vitruvian Man
Vitruvian Man: economy minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi chose Leonardo's drawing himself, as a symbol of money serving humanity rather than the reverse.
Q 25The euro banknotes, designed by Austrian Robert Kalina, show which two architectural features?
Windows or gateways and bridges
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.
Q 26The euro sign is a stylised version of which letter, crossed by two lines?
E
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.
Q 27Which euro banknote did the European Central Bank leave out of its second 'Europa' series?
500
500: the ECB dropped it over concerns that it could facilitate illicit activities, though existing notes remain legal tender and keep their value.
Q 28Where is the European Central Bank based?
Frankfurt
Frankfurt: the bank's headquarters incorporates the city's old wholesale market hall, where the Nazis gathered Frankfurt's Jews for deportation from 1941.
Q 29The European Parliament does most of its work in Brussels, but which French city is its official seat?
Strasbourg
Strasbourg: France secured it as the official seat at the 1992 Edinburgh summit, so MEPs travel there for twelve plenary sessions a year.
Q 30Which Auschwitz survivor led the first directly elected European Parliament?
Simone Veil
Simone Veil: as France's health minister she had pushed through the 1975 law that legalised abortion in France.