CNN news:帮你快速了解欧盟这个组织

CNN news 2016-05-22

In 2014, a terrorist group called Boko Haram kidnapped as many as 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria. At least 57 girls were able to escape soon afterward, more than 200 are still missing.

Well, another of the kidnapped girls is now free and safe. But there are different accounts about how this happened.

A witness who is on patrol with a vigilant group that fights Boko Haram says the girl just wondered out of the Sambisa Forest and asked for help.

She was with a baby and a man who identified himself as her husband and said he`d been kidnapped by Boko Haram on a separate occasion.

The witness says the girl has been reunited with her mother. But Nigerian officials say government troops who were working with the vigilantes rescued the girl and that a man she was with is a suspected Boko Haram terrorist. The military says they`re all getting medical attention and screening.

Next today, there`s a vote coming up in Britain that could change the make up of the European Union. On June 23rd, Britons will go to the polls to decide whether to stay part of the 28-nation alliance or to exit from the E.U. and try to negotiate a new trade deal with the association.

Before we get into the debate over this, here`s an overview of the E.U.

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MAX FOSTER, cnn INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What is the E.U.?

The European Union is a group of countries that work together to create a single market, to allow goods, capital, services and people to move between the member states, as long as they follow the rules and they pay the entry fee.

But we`re getting ahead of ourselves. To start this story, we need to go right back to the end of World War II. After six years of fighting, Europe was disseminated. Economies were collapsing and mistrust was rife as old enemies face the prospect of recreating trade ties.

France and previous occupiers Germany faced the difficult task of creating a unity for profit. So, they started talking, mainly about steel and coal.

In 1951, a total of six countries, France, Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands reached their first accord by uniting the steel and coal industries, creating the European Coal and Steel Community, or the ECSC. They later introduce the European Economic Community, EEC, in 1958. These two organizations are seen as the origin of the modern European Union, that wouldn`t adopt its new name until 1993.

More than six decades later, the European Union now represents more than half a billion people across 28 countries and with a common currency, the euro, which generates an estimated 14 trillion euros in GDP per year. The premise: countries who are economically linked are less likely to have conflicts.

But it isn`t a totally happy marriage for many countries. As some are affected differently by world events, there had been arguments over financial regulations, bailouts and different approaches to migration. This has given rise to anti-E.U. parties across Europe, with many calling for their countries to withdraw from arguably the world`s most powerful union.