European union, Iraq war, 11M and 2008 economical crisis

In short, the European Union – unlike the United States – is not a country (even though citizens of member states of the EU also hold European citizenship). It’s also not synonymous with Europe even if it’s often used that way. Not all countries that are in Europe (the continent) are member states – and some countries that are EU member states … aren’t even in Europe.

Most simply put, after the horrors of WWII, several countries decided that they wanted no more wars, hatred or bigotry and decided to cooperate more closely together, forming first the European Coal and Steel Community, and then the European Economic Community (EEC). In 1993, the European Union was finally created with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. From 2005 onwards, the EU has expanded to include some countries from Eastern Europe and now includes 28 member states.

Terrorist Attacks in Madrid in 2004

The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known in Spain as 11M) were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, 

The official investigation by the Spanish judiciary found that the attacks were directed by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as a reaction to Spain's involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Controversy regarding the bombings by the government arose, with Spain's two main political parties — PSOE and PP — accusing each other of concealing or distorting evidence for electoral reasons. 

The bombings occurred three days before general elections in which incumbent José María Aznar's PP was defeated.

Immediately after the bombing, leaders of the PP claimed evidence indicating the Basque separatist organization ETA was responsible for the bombings, while the opposition claimed that the PP was trying to prevent the public from knowing it had been an islamist attack, which would be interpreted as the direct result of Spain's involvement in Iraq's war.

Economical Crisis 2008

About 8.8 million homeowners in the U.S. had zero or negative equity by March 2008. This caused the number of foreclosures on homes to increase, meaning that many people lost their homes. During 2007, almost 1.3 million U.S. homes began foreclosure proceedings. The number of houses for sale continued to increase, which made the prices decrease. The homeowners with subprime loans left their houses with less value than they had when they were bought, which meant that the loans were worth more money than the house. The loaning companies were not able to make money from these houses.

The collapse of the housing bubble caused the value of investments to fall. The companies that had invested in subprime loans lost a total of about $512 billion. Citigroup and Merrill Lynch were two companies that lost the most money. More than half of the money lost, $260 billion, was lost by American firms.

 

The crisis explained with humour.