Where is the European Union?

Obviously, here somewhere, but much like the European continent itself, which has an unclear

boundary, the European Union also has some fuzzy edges to it.

To start, the official members of the European Union are, in decreasing order of population,

Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, the Kingdom of the Netherlands,

Greece, Belgium, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, Ireland, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus,

Luxembourg, and Malta.

The edges of the EU will probably continue to expand further out, as there are other countries

in various stages of trying to become a member.

How the EU works is hideously complicated and a story for another time, but for this video

you need no only three things.

First, countries pay membership dues, and second, vote on the laws they all must follow,

and third, citizens of member countries are automatically European Union citizens as well.

This last means that if you're a citizen of any of these countries, you are free to live and work

and retire in any of the others, which is nice,

especially if you think your country is too big or too small or too hot or too cold.

The European Union gives you options.

By the way, did you notice how all three of these statements have asterisks attached to this

unhelpful footnote?

Well, get used to it.

Europe loves asterisks that add exceptions to complicated agreements. These three, for example, point us towards the first bit of border fuzziness with Norway,

Iceland and Little Lichtenstein, none of which are in the European Union, but if you're an EU citizen,

...