The European Union has been one of the first to be established under regional integration in the early 1950’s (Gareth, 2003). Initially it had only two members but the union has since grown to have 28 member states by the year 2013; more members are expected to join. The main reasons why states come together to integrate is to achieve economic stability, security and peace within their borders (Tibor, 2004). There have been integrated values that have greatly contributed to its success. This includes great leaders with a vision such as R. Schuman and K. Adenauer from Germany and France respectively. The EU prides itself as one of the core models of how the regional integration should be. Although the region has had a lot of crises, it has always overcome them to achieve their status as the model for others to emulate.

The major benefit that EU has provided to its member states is the creation and establishment of trade. All the 28 member states provide a very wide variety of goods in the market (Gareth, 2003). This gives other member states a certain type of goods that they did not have previously. In addition the cost of getting such goods is greatly lowered because the trade between the member states is reduced or done away with (Tibor, 2004). This in return makes the member states to increase their trading activities and the money saved from tariffs can be used to buy a larger amount of goods.

The other advantage that EU has is the small number of its members. Compared to other regions, the EU only has 28 members and this makes it very easy to manage and harmonize.

Usually the EU was formed so that they can have an economic integration, after the economic integration was achieved, it included the political integration (Tibor, 2004). The political influence that the member states have is phenomenon such that the EU seems like one big political group. This kind of political integration enables the union to address the issues that may occur due to political instability or conflicts that would affect the stabilization of the region.

The economic integration within the union leads to the globalization of markets which later leads to more employment opportunities (Gareth, 2003). Due to market expansions, the firms usually need a great number of people to work in them. This in return makes people to shift from one country to the other in search of greener pastures.

There are only 28 members in the EU in the whole world. This has created a trading bloc within the region where only the members are allowed to trade with other members. Consequently, this has created trading barriers against those other countries that do not belong to the union.

With trade barriers there is the trade diversion (Tibor, 2004). If a member state within the union was trading with another country which is not a member; the trading relationship between the two has to stop so that the member state within the union can trade with another member state. This is regardless of whether the trade is cost efficient or not.

The EU requires the member states to give up the control they have especially in matters of trading and fiscal policies (Gareth, 2003). This leads to loss of national independence in a member state. The situation gets worse the more the union gets integrated. This means that most of the decisions that the member state used to make on its own has to be handed over to the union such as the economic integration which ensures that the member states removes the trading tariffs that were previously in existence.