| − | | | + | |Association of 27 states in [[Europe]]. Began as a free trade area (1958) known as the Common Market, becoming a single European market in the 1980s with extensive socialist-style regulation of business. Now in the process of becoming a super-state governed by the [[France|French]] political elite. In 2002 it instituted a single currency, the Euro, which is now on the point of collapse. |