Questions: European Integration: From the Coal and Steel Community to the European Union

Question 1

What was the main political goal of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951)?

• A. To compete with Japanese industry
• B. To make war between France and Germany practically impossible by placing key war industries under shared control
• C. To create a single European army
• D. To bring the Soviet Union into Western Europe

Answer: (B)

Coal and steel were the basis of military power. The Schuman Declaration of 1950 argued that pooling them under a common authority would make another Franco-German war unthinkable as well as materially impossible.

Question 2

Every member state of the European Union uses the euro as its currency.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The euro was introduced in 1999 for transactions and in 2002 as notes and coins, but not all members adopted it. Denmark kept its krone by agreement, and other members such as Sweden and Poland still use their own currencies.

Question 3

Which treaty created the European Union and laid out the plan for a single currency?

• A. The Treaty of Paris (1951)
• B. The Treaty of Rome (1957)
• C. The Maastricht Treaty (1992)
• D. The Treaty of Lisbon (2007)

Answer: (C)

The Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992 and came into force in 1993. It created the EU, introduced EU citizenship and set the path to economic and monetary union.

Question 4

Why did the enlargement of 2004 have special historical meaning?

Model answer: Most of the ten new members, such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, had been under communist rule or part of the Soviet Union. Their entry symbolized the reunification of a Europe that the Cold War had divided.

After the end of the Cold War, joining the EU became a goal for many Central and Eastern European states, and they reformed their economies and laws to meet membership conditions.