Community Customs Code (Import of Materials)
Introduction
The European Union (EU) is a democratic and legal political community,[7] constituted as a sui generis international/supranational organization[8][9] founded to promote and embrace the integration and common governance of the States and nations of Europe.[10] It is composed of twenty-seven European States and was established with the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht on November 1, 1993. although its predecessor dates back to 1951, with the Treaty of Paris "Treaty of Paris (1951)").[11] It is described as a de facto supranational union by various entities and means.[9][12].
The Member States – whose combined surface area covers an area of km² – are sovereign countries that make up the Union. Some of these States have territories outside Europe, which may be part of the European Union and are generally called outermost regions. However, certain European territories of the Member States and several associated territories located outside the continent are not part of the EU, the so-called special territories. As a whole, the EU territory had approximately 448 million inhabitants in 2023.[13].
The organization that would become the EU was created in the post-World War II period. Its initial steps consisted of promoting economic cooperation since - according to the official version - "trade produces an interdependence between countries that reduces the possibilities of conflict."[10] As a result, the European Economic Community (EEC/EC) was created in 1958 with the stated objective of increasing economic cooperation between its six founding countries,_1957:_EEC-6 "History of membership of the European Union"): Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Countries Bass. Since then, twenty-two more countries have joined (although in 2020 the United Kingdom left the EU) and an internal market has been created.[10].
To achieve their common objectives, the States of the Union attribute certain powers to it, exercising a common or shared sovereignty that is deployed through community channels.[14] Thus, with the Treaty of Maastricht, the "European Union" suprastructure united and was founded on the three pre-existing European Communities - the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the EC - and It added common foreign policy and judicial and police cooperation to them, forming a complex system known as "The Three Pillars." However, with the entry into force on December 1, 2009 of the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Union succeeded, completely although with certain particularities, to the European Communities and thereby assumed its unique legal personality as a subject of international law.[15].