I am honestly confused as to what the Europen Union really is. Is it a government, is it simply a way to get the nations of europe to be more effecient economically, politically, and militarily? Is Europe eventually going to become the United States of Europe? And what is good/bad about it?

Wikipedia seems to have a fairly comprehensive description of what it is.

I'm not by any means an expert on this, as the only bits I can remember are from a few years back, and they were brief in themselves.

As far as I'm aware, being in the EU means easier trading between countries, and laws that apply to all countries within the EU. Targets are things like a common currency (you may have heard of it), easy trading and suchlike. 'The United states of Europe' is pretty much as I understand it. Just many people don't want thing becoming too similar. After all, what's the point of going abroad if it's the same as home?

In a word... Yes.

Whether or not it currently succeeds in every aspect of that aim is something open to debate. The economic arguments concerning the EU are the ones I think I'm most clued up on, so I'll concentrate on those.

Basically, the EU seeks to merge the markets of its members into one big market. This is acheived by removing barriers to trade such as import tariffs, and most obviously, creating a single European currency. The main goal in doing this is to increase competetition between firms, which will in turn force firms to become more efficient, and results in the lowest possible price. There's a lot more to it, but that is the idea that underpins European economic policy.

However, there are some less than shining examples. The Common Agricultural Policy, for example, creates artificially high price levels for farm produce. If I remember correctly, the price of products is set arbitrarily, instead of being determined by market forces. This means that farmers are encouraged to produce more than can be sold. The excess is simply wasted, or even worse, 'dumped' in developing countries below the local market price, which forces local farmers out of business.

If the CAP was reformed, or removed completely, the price of food would come down on its own accord, farmers would only produce as much as they could sell, and market forces would persuade them to become more efficient. The main beneficiaries of CAP in its current form are small, inefficient farms, many of which happen to be located in France, which is the member state that cries the loudest when any reform of CAP is proposed.

I'm very much in favour of the EU, and of the UK being a key member of it. The vast majority of our trade is with the EU, and leaving it would be economic folly (we'd lose a lot of our trade, as the barriers to trade that don't exist within the EU do exist where countries outside of the Union are concerned). I draw the line at joining the single currency though, for now at least. Our economy is in great shape right now, because of the fine tuning that the Bank of England does with interest rates. If we joined the Euro, the UK's own institutions would cease to have any direct control over our economic policy. What's economically best for Europe as a whole isn't necessarily best for the UK's economy.

Sure, the institutions at the heart of the EU may be riddled with corruption, and there are policies that are in desperate need of overhaul. However, this isn't an argument for leaving the EU, it's actually a reason why we should be closer to the centre of it (politically and economically). The more prominent the UK is within the EU, the more of an influence it can have to change it for the better.

It is, as the Wikipedia article says, a supra-national organisation. Member countries give up certain aspects of sovereignty - most notably legal (the EU has ordered various UK statute laws overturned because they contravene EU rules), judicial (the European courts are now the highest courts of appeal, not the House of Lords) and economic (especially for those member who join the single currency). In return for this, member states gain the advantages of greater international cooperation, particularly economic bonuses. It also creates an economic bloc capable of competing on a level with the North American and fast-growing Asian blocs.

I heard this on the news and it brought up a question. I'm sorry if I sound stupid but I'm not familiar with the topic. If there is a European Union, would the countries lose their seperate identities?

So some people worry. I don't think there's much danger of that, though. There's thousands of years of very different cultures behind each of us - that's not going to disappear just because we all start using the same money. Even if integration progessed to the point that we really were a sort of "United States of Europe" we're not about to start blending into a homogenous mass.

Theres no chance of individual nations loosing their cultural identity.

The most that would happen is more people taking English as a second language, and that is about that. I say that because most diplomats and VIP's in the EU and the wider organisations like UN and NATO are turning to English because it is simply too cumbersome to translate everything into dozens of language, creating gross inefficiency. Of course, France hates this and is paying for people to learn French instead, without too much success. And why should they when more people in the world know English as a second or third language than any other?

Look at countries today. Distinct regions retain their cultural background. Even in the UK travel about. Each area is different to the next. And this is after hundreds of years of integration, forced or otherwise.

The EU itself states that there will be no forced integration. In fact, it has stated that it will not intrude apon the cultural development of any state. In that respect, we can expect diversity for a long long time to come.

The arguments to the contrary that I have seen are either irrational or outright xenophobic.

Welcome to the Conservative Party. Here's your blue ribbon, please leave your rationality by the door.

/spam

Isn't this partly due to the fact that English is already used as the World's business language, as well as it being the World's technical language? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against being multilingual, in fact, I think it a rather good idea. But starting from scratch just because it's not *your* language is a bit pointless in my opinion.

Yup. It is used more and more frequently in Science, engeneering, business, etc etc.
To put it into perspective, there are more English speakers in China than in the USA or the UK. No other language comes close to how widespread English is.

It's national pride to promote any other language from scratch when another is already so widely used. It doesn't make sense and will put back any attempts at a world-wide comprehensive language by decades.

This isn't arrogance on my part. I think being multi-lingual is a good thing. I loved learning French in school and still do.

Actually, nearly twice as many people in the world speak Manadarin, the common language of China, than speak English.

You are right though to say that English is far more widespread. Not surprisingly, English is a great deal more global than Mandarin, partially because it is a lot easier to learn. According to linguists that I've talked to about this, getting to a reasonable level in English is one of the easier challenges in the field. We do have various odd spellings and exceptions to grammatical rules, but even with these in mind it is usually easy to understand a person's intentions.

I do wonder about how much of this is based on the language itself and how much comes from the commonality of it in media such as films and television. I think I would be a lot better at learning Japanese today than I would ten years ago because I am far more accustomed to the sound of the language through watching their films, so I can only expect that this works the other way around too!

Playing the friendly devil's advocate here. An article I read, which can be found here (if prompted, the username/password are Lenape/patriots), says that:

"Without urgent action, some academics predict that half the world's estimated 6,800 languages could be extinct by the end of this century" and that "All but 600 are at some risk of extinction, threatened in particular by Chinese, English and Spanish".

Not that I think countries are apt to lose their identities as a result of the EU. However, technology, mass culture, and simple economics have destroyed many native cultures and tongues. While this is an inevitable result of the world becoming so small, it's still sad in many ways.

I blame Spanish for all linguistic problems in the world. I wonder why people always say that Spanish is the US's second language? They may be the fastest growing group (recent stats say 17%) but I don't think they are the largest minority....
I really dislike that poll because according to it, a black hispanic person is strictly hispanic, and because my grandparents are fully hispanic I am too, though I have nothing to do with hispanic culture... Grr.

Well, it is the US' second language because it's the one most people speak next to English. And Hispanics are the largest minority group in the US, at around 13.4% of the population.

What's wrong with Spanish? To me, it doesn't seem like the most exciting language to learn, but learning it would be useful in America.

The point on the 6800 languages disappearing...

In China the authorities are actively culling all languages other than official Mandarin (there are to my knowledge at least 11 distinct languages in China - and each has several diffierent dialects - aprox 1000 different dialects in China - 523 being in the Mandarin category).

Many other languages are dying out as the indiginous population die out or immigrate for a variety of reasons often spreading away from each other so far as to make cultural and liguistic homogeny and exclusivity difficult to maintain. Other languages are being bullied out in certain sectors by English - though these tend to be in scientific, technological, diplomatic and financial fields where local languages lack the evolutionary ability, diveristy, adaptability or widespread use of English.

In the EU major players like France and Germany have acquiesed to English usage because it is so useful, but this hasn't hurt their national language. The French are more worried about the spread of American English through film and TV - and have passed laws enforcing cinemas to show only a certain ratio of English speaking films to French speaking films (dubbing Hollywood is popular in France). Certainly the EU expansion will need either new member states to embrace English, French and / or German OR the whole EU will have to change to accomodate the new Eastern Block languages... I'd guess that it'll be English all the way, though this will only be for EU business and not otherwise affect member states.

I just did some research of my own, and found out that without urgent action, I predict, using solid numbers, that the entire world's population will have aids by 2041 at the earliest, and 2048 at the latest.

Sorry, but 'statistics' like these tend to bother me...

I don't think those numbers were based solely on statistics, but, like Overfriendly_Kitten said, on the basis of the success of the systematic elimination of many languages. Major languages aren't in any danger, and even minor ones are unlikely to be threatened by the E.U. in particular. But it is an interesting, but sad, fact that the more countries are involved in economics and politics on a world scale, the more standardised it is necessary for education, etc. to be. As we become more closely involved in each other's day-to-day life, we become more homogenous. It's not statistics, it's simple human adaptation.