Passport to the European Union

The European Union makes it easier for us to travel but also live, study or work abroad; we may buy and sell products from another EU country as well as share our skills and expertise; people in the EU may even transfer or invest money around the EU.

People throughout Europe do this everyday and it's taken for granted by young people who have never known it to be different; very few adults know that these freedoms are a result of UK membership of the European Union.

But what do we know about the member states of the European Union?

Whereabouts is the statue with more clothes than one would find in any woman's wardrobe. Did they really use eggs to built a bridge in Prague? Could there still be an island where no female either human ord animal is allowed?

This and a lot more information on the 27 member countries of the European Union e.g. their size and population, famous citizens etc. is answered in our little booklet "Passport to the European Union".

The booklet includes stickers of coins, flags, buildings and even a map. Children can find places for the stickers in the passport and on the map. Please take them on a tour of Europe and see what else they can find out about their neighbours. We hope they will have as much fun using it as we had producing their Passport to the European Union.

To view a (9 mb) pdf file of Passport to the European Union click here and click here for the answer sheet.

The Representation of the European Commission in the United Kingdom has already sent about 400,000 copies of Passport to the European Union to schools during the last year.

It has now produced an updated version with the exchange rates of February 2009 and more famous female to make it more gender balanced. It also has a sticker of the new Slovak Euro coin and will continue to make the Passport to the European Union available to UK schools and similar organisations completely free of charge on a first come first served basis.

To make sure your copies can be delivered in good time for the European Day of Languages, please fill in your orders as early as possible.

Due to the extraordinarily high demand a maximum of 100 copies can be ordered, so hopefully many may benefit from the offer. Due to our limited budget we regret not to be able to send any copies to schools which are not in the UK.

Paper copies of the passport will be available from your local Europe Direct Centre or clicking on the blue passport above to fill in a short form.