ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the European Union?

Membership in the EU is a mixed blessing. The greatest good, in general, is access to the free trade zone, Freedom of people's movement; you can travel, live and work in any EU country without the restrictions. By becoming part of the EU, any country has access to the markets of all the other countries in the EU. This is, generally speaking, an advantage because it increases the size of the potential market for each firm.  From a travelling tourist's point of view, it's great to be able to drive between the borders of EU countries without having to stop at checkpoints to produce passport identification it’s much easier borders to cross. Regarding citizenship, travel and work between member nations is unrestricted, so people facing economic difficulties and unemployment in their home nations may more easily move between nations to find employment.

 

On the other hand, EU membership brings with it some limitations on sovereignty.  Apart from the trade benefits, it is clear that there are plenty of negatives, as is shown by the current crisis that member nations such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece are facing. In addition, the loss of sovereignty is something that is much complained about. It is very difficult to have one system of laws for so many different countries with their own culture and background EU members cannot enact laws that violate various provisions of the basic EU laws.  For example, they cannot close their borders to people from other countries in the EU.  There are countless other examples having to do with much lesser issues like the labelling of food. This means that the countries are not free to enact any sort of laws that they want, which is something that sovereign countries are supposed to be able to do.

References

Euroblog (2012) available at: http://www.europeword.com/blog/europe/european-union-pros-and-cons/  (8 November 2012)