European Union Wikipedia

Within the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. This list includes all internationally recognised sovereign countries falling even partially under any common geographical or political definitions of Europe. The least democratic countries in Europe were Belarus, Russia and Turkey in 2025 according to the V-Dem Democracy indices. 27 European states are members of the politico-economic European Union, 26 of the border-free Schengen Area and 21 of the monetary union Eurozone. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks. Europe’s most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east.

This treaty was created in 1952 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which was built on the International Authority for the Ruhr, installed by the Western Allies in 1949 to regulate the coal and steel industries of the Ruhr area in West Germany. By the end of the war, European integration became seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism that had caused the war. Containing 5.5% of the world population in 2023, EU member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €17.935 trillion in 2024, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output. The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Access to basic necessities can be compromised, for example 10% of Europeans spend at least 40% of household income on housing. In Europe, many people are unable to access basic social conditions, which makes it harder for them to thrive and flourish.

From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480, and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion, and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries. The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols. In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and online casinos europe Cyprus from the Muslims, and reconquered the Balkans.

Modern definitions

• Between 711 and 720, most of the lands of the Visigothic Kingdom of Iberia were brought under Muslim rule—save for small areas in the northwest (Asturias) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees.
• All in all, Europe enjoys a considerable and long-exploited resource base of soil, forest, sea, and minerals (notably coal), but its people are increasingly its principal resource.
• During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe.
• Of the top 500 largest corporations in the world measured by revenue in 2024, 90 had their headquarters in the EU.
• The explosion at a service station in Creeslough, County Donegal, on 7 October 2022 killed ten people.
• The largest winners were the new member states, in particular unskilled labour in the new member states.

A research report from November 2024 declared that the Czech Republic is the EU’s most toxic country in Europe for car emissions. In June 2021, the European Union passed a European Climate Law with targets of 55% GHG emissions reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. The European Green Capital is an annual award given to cities that focuses on the environment, energy efficiency, and quality of life in urban areas to create smart city. In 2007, member states agreed that, in the future, 20 per cent of the energy used across the EU must be renewable, and carbon dioxide emissions have to be lower in 2020 by at least 20 per cent compared to 1990 levels. This international dimension is reflected in the EU’s Sixth Environmental Action Programme, which recognises that its objectives can only be achieved if key international agreements are actively supported and properly implemented both at EU level and worldwide. The legal basis for EU environmental policy was established with the introduction of the Single European Act in 1987.

In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. Some of these, such as the Alps and the Pyrenees, are oriented east–west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Having lived side by side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe’s animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of humans. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.

It has 27 European commissioners for different areas of policy, one from each member state, though commissioners are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. The European Council should not be mistaken for the Council of Europe, an international organisation independent of the EU and based in Strasbourg. It acts as a “collective head of state” and ratifies important documents (for example, international agreements and treaties). It convenes at least four times a year and comprises the president of the European Council (presently António Costa), the president of the European Commission and one representative per member state (either its head of state or head of government).

Candidate countries

In subsequent years, the environment became a formal policy area, with its own policy actors, principles and procedures. European policy-makers originally increased the EU’s capacity to act on environmental issues by defining it as a trade problem. According to the Institute for European Environmental Policy, environmental law comprises over 500 Directives, Regulations and Decisions, making environmental policy a core area of European politics. In 1957, when the European Economic Community was founded, it had no environmental policy. The climate of the European Union is of a temperate, continental nature, with a maritime climate prevailing on the western coasts and a mediterranean climate in the south.

Also in Asia, Europeans, especially the Spanish are an influential minority population in the Philippines. In Asia, European-derived populations, specifically Russians, predominate in North Asia and some parts of Northern Kazakhstan. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans in South Africa. In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people.

To the east, Kievan Rus’ expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance.