Номер 4, страница 26 - гдз по английскому языку 9 класс учебник Вербицкая, Маккинли

Unit three.

Track sixteen.

European Union, the beginnings.

Danielle McFarlane looks back at the unlikely birth of the European Union.

Today, twenty-eight countries belong to the European Union. More than five hundred and seven million Europeans have the right to live in, work in, or travel to other EU countries.

Millions of people enjoy friendly contact with their neighbors across borders. Governments across Europe pass the same laws about employment, food, transport, health and the environment. The EU is also the largest free market in the world.

A typical European supermarket is full of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheeses and meat that come from all over Europe. Twelve countries even use the same currency, the Euro. In fact, the European Union has a very big influence over our lives, but most of us don't even notice it.

But if we look at Europe just three generations ago, we start to understand that the story of the EU is even more surprising.

In nineteen forty-five, Europe had just experienced the most terrible war in history. Many historians believe that at least forty million people were killed, although such numbers are very hard to calculate.

At the end of the war, millions were homeless and much of Europe was in ruins. In fact, famine was a bigger problem in nineteen forty-seven than it was during the war years. Worst of all, many countries still didn't trust each other.

It is perhaps a surprise to learn that the first politician to suggest a United Europe after the war was Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during the war years. In September nineteen forty-six, during a meeting in Switzerland, he said that Europeans should come together to create a United States of Europe. However, most people, especially in Britain, thought that Churchill's ideas were shocking or even absurd.

Eight months later, a huge conference was organized in the Netherlands. Eight hundred important European academics and politicians were invited. Perhaps the most powerful speech was made by Salvador de Madariaga, a Spanish politician and writer.

"This Europe must be born. And she will when Spaniards say 'our Chartres', Englishmen say 'our Krakow', Italians 'our Copenhagen', and Germans 'our Bruges'. Then Europe will live."

But when de Madariaga spoke these words in nineteen forty-seven, it was already too late. Despite the fine words and emotional speeches, the Netherlands conference couldn't save Europe. It was already divided in two.

But the idea of a United Europe didn't die completely. A French politician, Robert Schuman, believed that the only way that France and Germany could become good neighbors again was by cooperating economically.

In nineteen fifty-one, six countries agreed to regulate trade, prices, and production of coal and steel. The experiment was a success, and in nineteen fifty-seven, the six countries signed the Treaty of Rome and created the European Economic Community. In nineteen ninety-three, the EEC changed its name to the European Union.

Nine more countries joined the organization between nineteen seventy-three and nineteen ninety-two, and another ten countries became members in two thousand and four, followed by two more in two thousand and seven and one more in two thousand and thirteen. Perhaps de Madariaga's dream will come true one day after all.