Which countries are EU members

Confused about which countries are in the EU? I was, so in the below article I have had a look into which countries are members of the European Union, which countries might become members in the future and along the way i have noted some other interesting facts about the EU too.

The European Union is composed of twenty seven independent sovereign countries which are known as member states :

They are listed below in alphabetical order :

Austria,

Belgium,

Bulgaria,

Cyprus,

Czech Republic,

Denmark,

Estonia,

Finland,

France,

Germany,

Greece,

Hungary,

Ireland,

Italy,

Latvia,

Lithuania,

Luxembourg,

Malta,

The Netherlands,

Poland,

Portugal,

Romania,

Slovakia,

Slovenia,

Spain,

Sweden,

The United Kingdom.

Ever Wondered which countries might be next to join the EU ?

There are three official candidate countries, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Turkey. The western Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia are officially recognised as potential candidates and Kosovo has been granted similar status. Iceland could possibly be fastracked given the recent ecomomic and currency crisis they have been dealing with.

More information about the European Union (E.U)

The EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community.

The fiftreen EU member states that use the Euro € as their official currency are : Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain.

Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia all have their own currency pegged to the Euro.

Total EU population : 491,018,683 (July 2008 est.)

Total EU land : total: 4,324,782 sq km ( which is still not even half the size of the United States of America )

Highest mountain in the EU : Mont Blanc in France (border with Italy) at 4800 metres high.

Average life expectancy for whole EU : 77 years of age , 80 for ladies, 74 for gents.

English is the most widely spoken language in the EU (just under 50% of the EU opoulation can speak it).German is the language with highest percentage of the EU population having it as their mother tongue at around 20% as it is also spoken by Austrians.

The other official langauges of the EU are : Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish