In 1952/58, the six founding members of the so called "Montan Union" (based on coal and steel) were: Belgium, France, Germany - West, Italy, Luxemburg and The Netherlands. The success story created by this special economic zone attracted further member states:
1973 Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom
1981 Greece
1986 Portugal and Spain
1990 the European Community territory and population was effectively enlarged when East Germany reunited with West Germany
1995 Austria, Finland, and Sweden
2004 Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
2007 Bulgaria and Romania
Europe and specifically the EU can mean different things to different people:
an integrated Europe, including the Eurozone, the European Union and the Single Market
a separate superstate, involving fortress Europe or a Europe of the Regions
new ways of looking at Europe, including Eastern Europe, Central Europe and the European core states
old ways, including Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the peripheral states
The goal to inaugurate the Free Economic Zone and later the EU and the Single Currency Zone was:
to create one internal market, so as to launch Europe as an economic superpower
to eradicate obstacles to trade and so enable businesses to benefit from new economies of scale
to enable more cross-border competition so as to wipe out inefficient firms
This has been achieved through:
Removal of barriers to the four freedoms of movement (people, goods, services and capital) within the EU
Barriers were: regulatory, technical, legal, bureaucratic, cultural and protectionist
EU Directives telling member states’ governments to put changes into effect
The Euro is part of this strategy to unify the economic systems and create competition:
Euro bank notes and coins were introduced January 2002
Common currency for 12 of the 25 member states of the EU
Apart from the new EU entrantsin 2004, non-eurozone states are UK, Sweden and Denmark
Watch this space for updates ! 
