European Union - GS questions based on daily current affairs

ANSWER: 50

Explanation:

• Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty sets out how an EU country might voluntarily leave the union.
• Article 50 says: “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”
• It specifies that a leaver should notify the European council of its intention, negotiate a deal on its withdrawal and establish legal grounds for a future relationship with the EU. On the European side, the agreement needs a qualified majority of member states and consent of the European parliament.
• The only real quantifiable detail in the article is a provision that gives negotiators two years from the date of article 50 notification to conclude new arrangements.
• The Treaty of Lisbon (initially known as the Reform Treaty) is an international agreement which amends the two treaties (Maastricht Treaty and Treaty of Rome) which form the constitutional basis of the European Union (EU).

ANSWER: Treaty of Rome

Explanation:

• The Treaty of Rome (1958) is known in updated form as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007) or TFEU.
• The Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (TEEC), is an international agreement that led to the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1958. The word Economic was deleted from the treaty's name by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, and the treaty was repackaged as the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union on the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009.
• The TEEC proposed the progressive reduction of customs duties and the establishment of a customs union.
• It proposed to create a common market of goods, workers, services and capital within the EEC's member states.
• It also proposed the creation of common transport and agriculture policies and a European social fund.
• It also established the European Commission.

ANSWER: EU

Explanation:

• The Maastricht Treaty (formally, the Treaty on European Union or TEU) undertaken to integrate Europe was signed on 7 February 1992 by the members of the European Community in Maastricht, Netherlands
• Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
• The Maastricht Treaty has been amended by the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon.
• EU now has 27 members (UK has left).