The European Union today has 27 member countries (we are already considering the former 28th, the United Kingdom), but this number has only been reached in recent years. For example it's only 18 years ago, on 13 December 2002 that the Council of the European Union approved the accession of a package of countries (the most numerous ever, all at the same time): it concerns Cyprus, Malta, and then the block of Eastern countries, from the Baltic States (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania), passing through Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, up to to Hungary and Poland, which in recent days have ended up in the eye of the storm because they were, only to have second thoughts about it, finding an agreement with the other countries, vetoing the Recovery Fund. However, these countries actually joined the Union only on May 1, 2004, after signing the accession treaty in 2003.
With this shedding of new members, the number of member countries then rose to 25, only to then grow to 28 with the subsequent entries of Romania and Bulgaria (2007) and Croatia (2013). At the beginning there were only 6 founding countries and Italy was also part of these: on 23 July 1952 the European Coal and Steel Community was founded from Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Then on 1 January 1958 the European Economic Community came to life, with the same 6 countries. The first enlargement took place in 1973: Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined; then in 1981 Greece (with the total number rising to 10); then in 1986 Spain and Portugal: in 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden; and nine years after the aforementioned enlargement which brought the total number to 25.
