NEWS
By Los Angeles Times | November 14, 1994
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- At the end of a long and emotional campaign, Sweden yesterday voted solidly to abandon its Arctic isolation and join the European Union.Sweden's approval follows similar yes votes in Austria and Finland this year and is expected to give a boost to a referendum at the end of the month in neighboring Norway, where opposition has been strong.The addition of all four countries would make the EU the world's largest and richest free-trade bloc, surpassing North America, and could help speed the integration of the Eastern and Central European countries hoping to join.
NEWS
By Trudy Rubin | June 7, 2005
PHILADELPHIA - The European Union is a wondrous construct. In five decades, it has made allies out of historic enemies and brought unprecedented prosperity to Europe. But it was created as an economic union, and its high point was the creation of a single currency, the euro. The idea that Europeans could create one super state, a United States of Europe, was a vast overreach. The EU has kept adding members, now 25, that include ex-communist states where people are willing to work for less than Western Europeans.
NEWS
By Richard O'Mara and Richard O'Mara,Staff Writer | June 18, 1992
DUBLIN, Ireland -- Today the Irish people vote on the Maastricht treaty of European union -- and on their past, their future, their national dignity, as some perceive it, and on the fate of the unborn Irish child.They have made the referendum to rescue the Maastricht Treaty, following its defeat June 2 by the Danes, a bigger thing than anyone ever intended.They have invested it with their anxieties over matters apparently far removed from the question at hand. They have been obsessed with it.On Tuesday, a man devastated by beer slouched in a hotel bar on O'Connell Street, wavering in his chair, and drawing stares from the waiters and patrons, nearly all French, German and American tourists.
NEWS
November 2, 1993
"Whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not, all nationals of the 12 member states of the European Community woke up [yesterday] as something which [Sunday] night they were not, namely citizens of the European Union."So editorialized the Financial Times of London, but it was largely a sardonic observation. On a day devoid of celebration of this ostensibly historic event, the 12 very sovereign governments involved could not even decide whether to call themselves a rather modest "European Community," which they have been for some time, or a more grandiose "European Union."
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | November 27, 1994
BERGEN, Norway -- The meeting was billed as a discussion on whether Norway should join the European Union, but judging from the number of "no" buttons, most of those crowded into the tiny hall in rural Os this week had already made up their minds.They listened politely while Ranveig Froyland, a member of Parliament, told them that they would be better off inside Europe.But when Hallvard Bakke, a former government aide who opposes membership, declared that Norway should never surrender its authority or its sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, the audience of farmers and retirees applauded enthusiastically.
NEWS
By Los Angeles Times | January 6, 1995
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A hesitant but increasingly worried Western Europe took its first substantive action against Russia yesterday to register disapproval of Moscow's efforts to crush resistance in breakaway Chechnya.Speaking to a committee of the European Parliament here, European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek announced that the EU would delay implementing an important partnership agreement with Moscow that would open the prospect of an eventual Russia-EU free trade agreement, improve the investment climate in Russia for EU-based private companies and establish regular political dialogue between Moscow and Brussels.