would do i i literally never knew that it was something this
strict i thought the european union was literally just okay we're on the continent of europe and um
we're gonna just vibe together like this i had no idea it was this complicated
what's good youtube it is your boy g wasser and uh we're gonna be checking out the
european union explained and uh i do know that the european union is actually pretty large
i don't know if it's the largest union or the only union in the entire world i don't know
but um yeah i know that there are pretty large amount of countries in the european union
and uh we're going to find out more about that right now so i'll like to like this video and
subscribe if you know anything that i don't know if you're from europe tell me what country you
guys are from in the european section uh we're gonna do this right now so uh let's get it guys
where is the european union obviously here somewhere but much like the european continent
itself which has an unclear boundary the european union also has some fuzzy edges to it to start the
official members of the european union are in decreasing order of population germany france
the united kingdom italy spain poland romania the kingdom of the netherlands greece belgium portugal
the czech republic hungary sweden austria bulgaria denmark slovakia finland ireland croatia lithuania
latvia slovenia estonia cyprus luxembourg and malta the edges of the eu will probably continue
to expand further out as there are other countries in various stages of trying to become a member how
the eu works is hideously complicated and a story for another time but for this video you need know
only three things first countries pay membership dues and second vote on the laws they all must
follow and third citizens of member countries are automatically european union citizens as well
this last means that if you're a citizen of any of these countries you are free to live
and work and retire in any of the others which is nice especially if you think your country is
too big or too small or too hot or too cold the european union gives you options by the way did
you notice how all three of these statements have asterisks attached to this unhelpful footnote well
yeah countries pay membership to use countries vote on laws citizens of countries are eu citizens
okay get used to it europe loves asterisks that add exceptions to complicated agreements these
three for example point us towards the first bit of border fuzziness with norway iceland and little
liechtenstein none of which are in the european union but if you're an eu citizen you can live
in these countries and norwegians icelanders or lichtensteiners can live in yours why in exchange
for freedom of movement of people they have to pay membership fees to the european union even
though they aren't a part of it and thus don't get a say in its laws that they still have to follow
this arrangement is the european economic area and it sounds like a terrible deal were it not for
that asterisk which grants eea but not eu members a pass on some areas of law notably farming and
fishing something a country like say iceland might care quite a lot about running themselves between
the european union and the european economic area the continent looks mostly covered with
the notable exception of switzerland who remains neutral and fiercely independent except for her
participation in the schengen area if you're from a country that keeps her borders extremely clean
and or well patrolled the schengen area is a bit mind-blowing because it's an agreement between
countries to take a meh approach to borders in the schengen area international boundaries look
like this no border officers or passport checks of any kind you can walk from lisbon to talon without
identification or the need to answer the question business or pleasure for switzerland being part
of schengen but not part of the european union means that non-swiss can check in any time they
like but they can never stay this kumbaya approach to borders isn't appreciated by everyone in the eu
most loudly the united kingdom and ireland who argue that islands are different thus to get
onto these fair isles you'll need a passport and a good reason britannia's reluctance to
get fully involved with the eu brings us to the next topic money the european union has its own
fancy currency the euro used by the majority but not all of the european union members this
economic union is called the eurozone and to join a country must first reach certain financial goals
and lying about reaching those goals is certainly not something anyone would do i i literally never
knew that it was something this strict i thought the european union was literally just okay
we're on the continent of europe and um we're gonna just vote together like this i had no idea
it was this complicated most of the non-eurozone members when they meet the goals will ditch their
local currency in favor of the euro but three of them denmark sweden and of course the united
kingdom have asterisks attached to the euro section of the treaty giving them a permanent
opt-out and weirdly four tiny european countries andorra san marino monaco and vatican city have an
asterisk giving them the exact reverse the right to print and use euros as their money despite
not being in the european union at all so that's the big picture there's the eu which makes all the
rules the eurozone inside of it with the common currency the european economic area outside of it
where people can move freely and the selective schengen for countries that think borders just
aren't worth the hassle as you can see there's some strange overlap with these borders but we're
not done talking about complications by a long shot once again because empire so portugal and
spain have islands from their colonial days that they've never parted with these are the madeira
and canary islands off the coast of africa and the azores well into the atlantic because
these islands are spanish and portuguese they're part of the european union as well
adding a few islands to the eu's borders isn't a big deal until you consider france the queen
of not letting go she still holds on to a bunch of islands in the caribbean reunion
off the coast of madagascar and french guiana in south america as far as france is concerned these
are france too which single-handedly extends the edge-to-edge distance of the european union across
a third of the earth's circumference collectively these bits of france spain and portugal are called
the outermost regions and they're the result of the simple answer to empire just keep it on the
other hand there's the united kingdom the master of maintaining complicated relationships with her
quasi-former lands and she's by no means alone in this on such an empire-happy continent the
netherlands and denmark and france again all have what the european union calls overseas territories
they're not part of the european union instead they're a bottomless well of asterisks due to
their complicated relationships with both the european union and their associated countries
which this is so complicated i had no idea i literally just thought that it was a bunch of
countries gathered together are we going about together this is literally like a treaty like a
a a bank contracts and everything girl like i had no idea this was so complicated
makes it hard to say anything meaningful about them as a group but in general european union
law doesn't apply to these places though in general the people who live there are european
union citizens because in general they have the citizenship of their associated country so
in general they can live anywhere in the eu they want but in general other european union
citizens can't freely move to these territories which makes these places a weird semi-permeable
membrane of the european union proper and the final part we're going to talk about in detail
even though there are still many more one-off asterisks you might stumble upon such as the
isle of man or those spanish cities in north africa or gibraltar who pretends to be part of
southwest england sometimes or that region in greece where it's totally legal to ban
women or sabbah and friends who are part of the netherlands and so should be part of the eu but
aren't or the pharaoh islands upon which while citizens of denmark live they lose
their eu citizenship and on and on it goes these asterisks almost never end but this video must
i mean that was that was that was very educational that was very occasional
and i'm like so shocked about all of those things that i saw because
i didn't know that was a case right that's really interesting like europe is so crazy like like i
thought it was just like the european union is just because of the continent europe right like
this is crazy this is really crazy guys i don't know
i'm really confused like i literally had no idea this was like so complicated
wow anyways guys i'll catch you guys in another video if you guys have any other crazy videos
that i would you know be shocked about leave those in the comment section down below
definitely check them out for you guys at a later time man we outta here guys peace