The European Union
	The world's largest economy
	The European union has grown from an economic collaboration between a few countries to a full blown union of 25 countries.  Recent strength of the union's common currency against the dollar led to the fact that the EU is now the world's largest economy.
	1957 - 2004
	This animation shows the growth of the union between 1957 and 2004.
	2004
	During 2004, the union goes through it's largest expansion yet, with the adhesion of 10 countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta and the Czech Republic. Furthermore, adhesion of Turkey, Rumania and Bulgaria is being negociated, and will very probably take place during this decade.
	Ceuta and the European Union
	Spain joined the European Union 1986.  Article 25 of the adhesion-act specifies that Ceuta  does not form part of the common customs-territory of the union, because of it’s geographical location on another continent. This effectively means that in terms of customs regulations, Ceuta has a statute of ‘third country’.  This implies that commercial exchanges between Ceuta and the EU are subject to the EU legislation on external commerce.
	Preferential commercial system
	When EU legislators drafted the adhesion-act, their consideration of the social-economical situation of Ceuta resulted in the definition of a preferential commercial-system for the City, which was defined in protocol no. 2 of the adhesion-act. This preferential system was implemented in 1988 with EU regulation CE 1135/88, which was replaced in 2001 with EU regulation CE 82/2001.