A portrait by numbers of the European Union, which elects its MEPs from June 6 to 9.

27 countries

Heir to a six-country European Economic Community (EEC) established by the Treaty of Rome (1957), the EU of the Maastricht Treaty (1992) now includes 27 members. The United Kingdom, the 28th member, left on January 31, 2020 as part of Brexit.

The most significant enlargement took place in 2004 with the entry of ten countries: eight former communist countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, as well as the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta.

Twenty of its members trade in the euro, a currency introduced in 1999. Croatia is the most recent country to join the eurozone, in 2023. Some countries in the Union, such as Denmark and Sweden, have chosen to keep the their national currency, while others are taking the necessary steps to adopt the single currency.

A single market

EU members together form a single market, in which goods, people, capital and services can move freely between countries. This single market was established in 1993.

Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $16.747 trillion (€15.7 trillion) in 2022 recently surpassed that of China ($17.963 trillion) and remains far behind that of the US ($25.44 trillion), according to with the World Bank.

447 million inhabitants

With 447 million inhabitants, the EU has a larger population than the United States (333 million), but three times smaller than China and India and their 1.4 billion inhabitants each. Germany is the Member State with the largest population (84 million inhabitants) and Malta the smallest (530,000).

Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea and from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, the EU covers 4.3 million square kilometres. It is smaller than Russia (17 million square kilometers) or the United States (9.8 million square kilometers), but larger than India (3.3 million square kilometers).

Systematic checks on people at the borders have been abolished among the 25 EU countries that are members of the Schengen area, to which only Cyprus and Ireland belong. The two most recent member states, Romania and Bulgaria, partially joined the Schengen area on March 31, but checks continue at land borders.

24 languages

The 24 official languages ​​of the European Union range from the most widely spoken in the world, such as English, Spanish and French, to the least used, such as Irish Gaelic, Finnish and Bulgarian.

This mix creates 552 possible language combinations in the European Parliament, which require an army of 660 translators.

2 trillion euros

The EU budget is €1.2 trillion for the period 2021-2027. Member States contribute to it approximately 1% of their Gross National Income (GNI) and through various other contributions (VAT, customs duties, plastic waste).

To this amount is added €807 billion of the first European recovery plan adopted by the Union in 2020.

In the context of the war in Ukraine, European institutions have also released around 79.5 billion euros so far to help Kiev, according to data from the German research institute Kiel Institute.