ABSTRACT
Originally created by six European countries through the Treaty of Rome in 1957, as a customs union with future goals in the creation of a common market and in the construction of a political Europe (‘determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ 1 ), the EU has evolved to expand a composite mission of promoting ‘peace, prosperity and freedom for its 495 million citizens — in a fairer, safer world’ (EU 2008). At the end of the 2010s, with its 500 million-plus citizens, the EU28 has become the third most densely populated polity after China and India, respectively. In addition to pursuing ‘the constant improvements of the living and working conditions of their peoples, recognizing that the removal of existing obstacles calls for concerted action in order to guarantee steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition’, and to contributing ‘by means of a common commercial policy, to the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade’, the EU MS have devoted time and effort to strengthen the ‘solidarity which binds Europe and the overseas countries’ ensuring the ‘development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations’. 2 Since the end of the Cold war the Union has completed three enlargement rounds, and has broadened cooperation with developing countries beyond the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states (ACP).
