Earlier this year European integration achieved another major success. Ten new member states joined the European Union, which now makes European reunification almost complete. With its 25 member countries, the EU now has a population of 455 million people. With the participation of Switzerland we would be still closer to half a billion people.
But even without Switzerland the EU as a whole has the third largest population in the world (only after China and India) making it larger than the US and Japan combined. However, this historic event occurred immediately after a period of sluggish economic growth which left the European economy somewhat weakened.