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The First Bulgarian Empire (Old ) was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed in southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded circa 681 when Bulgar tribes led by Asparukh moved to the northeastern Balkans. There they secured Byzantine recognition of their right to settle south of the Danube by defeating — possibly with the help of local South Slavic tribes — the Byzantine army led by Constantine IV. At the height of its power, Bulgaria spread from the Danube Bend to the Black Sea and from the Dnieper River to the Adriatic Sea. 

As the state solidified its position in the Balkans, it entered into a centuries-long interaction, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, with the Byzantine Empire. Bulgaria emerged as Byzantium's chief antagonist to its north, resulting in several wars. The two powers also enjoyed periods of peace and alliance, most notably during the Second Arab siege of Constantinople, where the Bulgarian army broke the siege and destroyed the Arab army, thus preventing an Arab invasion of Southeastern Europe. Byzantium had a strong cultural influence on Bulgaria, which also led to the eventual adoption of Christianity in 864. After the disintegration of the Avar Khaganate, the country expanded its territory northwest to the Pannonian Plain. Later the Bulgarians confronted the advance of the Pechenegs and Cumans, and achieved a decisive victory over the Magyars, forcing them to establish themselves permanently in Pannonia.

During the late 9th and early 10th centuries, Simeon I achieved a string of victories over the Byzantines. Thereafter, he was recognized with the title of Emperor, and proceeded to expand the state to its greatest extent.  After the annihilation of the Byzantine army in the battle of Anchialus in 917, the Bulgarians laid siege to Constantinople in 923 and 924. The Byzantines, however, eventually recovered, and in 1014, under Basil II, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Bulgarians at the Battle of Kleidion. By 1018, the last Bulgarian strongholds had surrendered to the Byzantine Empire, and the First Bulgarian Empire had ceased to exist. It was succeeded by the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185.

After the adoption of Christianity, Bulgaria became the cultural center of Slavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was further consolidated with the invention of the Glagolitic and Early Cyrillic alphabets shortly after in the capital Preslav, and literature produced in Old Bulgarian soon began spreading north. Old Bulgarian became the lingua franca of much of Eastern Europe and it came to be known as Old Church Slavonic. Benjamin W. Fortson. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, p. 374 In 927, the fully independent Bulgarian Patriarchate was officially recognized.

The Bulgars and other non-Slavic tribes in the empire    gradually adopted an essentially foreign Slavic language.  Since the late 10th century, the names Bulgarians and Bulgarian gained prevalence and became permanent designations for the local population, both in literature and in common parlance. The development of Old Church Slavonic literacy had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into neighboring cultures, while stimulating the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity. 

Nomenclature

The First Bulgarian Empire became known simply as Bulgaria  since its recognition by the Byzantine Empire in 681. Some historians use the terms Danube Bulgaria,  First Bulgarian State,   or First Bulgarian Tsardom (Empire). Between 681 and 864 the country was also known as the Bulgarian Khanate,   Danube Bulgarian Khanate, or Danube Bulgar Khanate   in order to differentiate it from Volga Bulgaria, which emerged from another Bulgar group. During its early existence, the country was also called the Bulgar state  or Bulgar qaghanate.  Between 864 and 917/927, the country was known as the Principality of Bulgaria or Knyazhestvo Bulgaria.

In English language sources, the country is often known as the Bulgarian Empire. 

Created as a union between Bulgars and Slavs, for mutual protection against the Byzantine Empire to the south and the Avars to the north-west, the First Bulgarian Empire was ruled according to Bulgar tradition with the head of state being the Khan. The Slavs kept significant autonomy and eventually their language and traditions shaped the Bulgarian culture and people with Bulgaria becoming a Slavic country.

Background

During the time of the late Roman Empire, the lands of present-day Bulgaria had been organized into several provinces - Scythia Minor, Moesia (Upper and Lower), Thrace, Macedonia (First and Second), Dacia (north of the Danube), Dardania, Rhodope and Hermimont, and had a mixed population of Romanized Getae and Hellenized Thracians. Several consecutive waves of Slavic migration throughout the 6th and early 7th centuries led to the almost complete Slavicization of the region, at least linguistically.

The Bulgars

The Bulgars also included the tribes of Onogurs, Utigurs and Kutrigurs.  Between 630 and 635, Khan Kubrat managed to unite the main Bulgar tribes, creating a powerful confederation called Old Great Bulgaria, also known as Onoguria. Under strong Khazar pressure Old Great Bulgaria disintegrated in 668.  Afterwards Khan Asparuh parted ways to seek a secure home. It is difficult to estimate the number of Asparuh's Bulgars, Zlatarski posits that their number was not great,  on the contrary Runciman consider that the tribe must have been of considerable dimension.  In 680 Asparukh founded after the Battle of Ongal the First Bulgarian Empire, south of the Danube on Byzantine territory. It was officially recognized as an independent state by the Byzantine Empire in 681.   

Formation of the Bulgarian ethnicity

It is likely that the original Bulgars were greatly outnumbered by the Slavic population among whom they were settled. Between the 7th and the 10th centuries, the Bulgars gradually became absorbed by the Slavs, adopting a South Slav language and converting to Christianity (of the Byzantine rite) under Boris I of Bulgaria in 864. Modern Bulgarians are normally considered to be of Southern Slavic origin. However, the Slavs were only one of the communities that had been present in the area conquered by Bulgars, themselves being recent migrants in the Balkans. Several other peoples were eventually absorbed into the new ethnicity. At that time the process of absorption of the remnants of the old Thraco-Roman and Thraco-Byzantine population had already been significant in the formation of this new ethnic group. The new single identity nation would continue to identify as Bulgarian and uphold the eponymous state as its own. Modern Bulgarians continue to celebrate the original non-Slavic Bulgar state and Thracian ancestors, while embracing a Slavic identity at the same time.

History 

Establishing a firm foothold in the Balkans 

After the decisive victory at Ongala in 680 the armies of the Bulgars and Slavs advanced to the south of the Balkan mountains, defeating again the Byzantines who were then forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty which acknowledged the establishment of a new state on the borders of the Empire. They were also to pay an annual tribute to Bulgaria. In the same time the war with the Khazars to the east continued and in 700 Khan Asparough perished in battle with them. The Bulgars lost the territories to the east of the Dnester River, but managed to hold the lands to the west. The Bulgars and the Slavs signed a treaty according to which the head of the state became the Khan of the Bulgars, who had also the obligation to defend the country against the Byzantine, while the Slavic leaders gained considerable autonomy and had to protect the northern borders along the Carpathian mountains against the Avars. 

Khan Asparuh's successor, Khan Tervel helped the deposed Byzantine Emperor Justinian II to regain his throne in 705.  In return he was given the area Zagore in Northern Thrace, which was the first expansion of the country to the south of the Balkan mountains. However, three years later Justinian tried to take it back by force, but his army was defeated at Anchialus. In 716 Khan Tervel signed an important agreement with Byzantium. During the siege of Constantinople in 717–718 he sent 50,000 troops to help the besieged city. In the decisive battle the Bulgarians massacred around 30,000 Arabs  and Khan Tervel was called The saviour of Europe by his contemporaries.

Internal instability and struggle for survival 

Khan Sevar, the last scion of the Dulo clan, died in 753. With his death the Khanate fell into a long political crisis during which the young country was on the verge of destruction. In just fifteen years, seven Khans ruled, all of whom were murdered. There were two main factions: some nobles wanted uncompromising war against the Byzantines, while others searched for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. That instability was used by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V (745–775), who launched nine major campaigns aiming to eliminate Bulgaria. In 763 he defeated the Bulgarian Khan Telets at Anchialus,   but the Byzantines were unable to advance further North. In 775 Khan Telerig tricked Constantine into revealing those loyal to him in the Bulgarian Court, then executed all the Byzantine spies in the capital Pliska.  Under his successor Khan Kardam, the war took a favourable turn after the great victory in the battle of Marcelae  in 792. The Byzantines were thoroughly defeated and forced once again to pay tribute to the Khans. As a result of the victory, the crisis was finally overcome, and Bulgaria entered the new century stable, stronger, and consolidated.

Territorial expansion

Under the great Khan Krum (803–814), also known as Crummus and Keanus Magnus, Bulgaria expanded southward and to the northwest, occupying the lands between the middle Danube and Moldova, the whole territory of present-day Romania, Sofia in 809  and Adrianople (modern Edirne) in 813, threatening Constantinople itself. Between 804 and 806 the Bulgarian armies thoroughly eliminated the Avar Khanate and a border with the Frankish Empire was established along the middle Danube. In 811 a large Byzantine army was decisively defeated in the battle of the Varbitsa Pass.  The Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I was slain along with most of his troops, and his skull was used as a drinking cup.  Krum immediately took the initiative and moved the war towards Thrace, defeating the Byzantines once more at Versinikia in 813.  After a treacherous Byzantine attempt to kill the Khan during negotiations, Krum pillaged the whole of Thrace, seized Odrin, and resettled its 10,000 inhabitants in "Bulgaria across the Danube".  He made enhanced preparation to capture Constantinople: 5,000 iron-plated wagons were built to carry the siege equipment;  the Byzantines even pleaded for help from the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious.  Due to the sudden death of the great Khan, however, the campaign was never launched. Khan Krum implemented legal reform, establishing equal rules and punishment for all peoples living within the country's boundaries, intending to reduce poverty and to strengthen the social ties in his vastly enlarged state.

Khan Omurtag (814–831) concluded a 30-year peace treaty with the Byzantines,  thus allowing both countries to restore their economies and finance after the bloody conflicts in the first decade of the century. The northwestern boundaries with the Frankish Empire were firmly settled along the middle Danube by 827. Extensive building was undertaken in the capital Pliska, including the construction of a magnificent palace, pagan temples, ruler's residence, fortress, citadel, water-main, and bath, mainly from stone and brick.

During the short reign of Khan Malamir (831–836), the important city of Plovdiv was incorporated into the country. Under Khan Presian (836–852), the Bulgarians took most of Macedonia, and the borders of the country reached the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. Byzantine historians do not mention any resistance against the Bulgarian expansion in Macedonia, leading to the conclusion that the expansion was largely peaceful.  Between 839 and 842 the Bulgarians waged war on the Serbs but did not make any progress. 

Bulgaria under Boris I

The reign of Boris I (852–889) began with numerous setbacks. For ten years the country fought against the Byzantine and Eastern Frankish Empires, Great Moravia, the Croats and the Serbs  forming several unsuccessful alliances and changing sides. In August 863 there was a period of 40 days of earthquakes and there was a lean year, which caused famine throughout the country. To cap it all, there was an incursion of locusts.

Christianization

In 864 the Byzantines under Michael III invaded Bulgaria on suspicions that Khan Boris I prepared to accept Christianity in accordance with the Western rites. Upon the news of the invasion, Boris I started negotiations for peace.  The Byzantines returned some lands in Macedonia and their single demand was that he accept Christianity from Constantinople rather than Rome. Khan Boris I agreed to that term and was baptised in September 865 assuming the name of his godfather, Byzantine Emperor Michael, and became Boris-Mihail.  The pagan title "Khan" was abolished and the title "Knyaz" assumed in its place. The reason for the conversion to Christianity, however, was not the Byzantine invasion. The Bulgarian ruler was indeed a man of vision and he foresaw that the introduction of a single religion would complete the consolidation of the emerging Bulgarian nation, which was still divided on a religious basis.  He also knew that his state was not fully respected by Christian Europe and its treaties could have been ignored by other signatories on religious basis.

Тhe Byzantines' goal was to achieve with peace what they were unable to after two centuries of warfare: to slowly absorb Bulgaria through the Christian religion and turn it into a satellite state, as naturally, the highest posts in the newly founded Bulgarian Church were to be held by Byzantines who preached in the Greek language. Knyaz Boris I was well aware of that fact and after Constantinople refused to grant autonomy of the Bulgarian Church in 866, he sent a delegation to Rome declaring his desire to accept Christianity in accordance with the Western rites along with 115 questions to Pope Nicolas I.   The Bulgarian ruler desired to take advantage of the rivalry between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople as his main goal was the establishment of an independent Bulgarian Church in order to prevent both the Byzantines and the Catholics from exerting influence in his lands through religion. The Pope's detailed answers to Boris' questions were delivered by two bishops heading a mission whose purpose was to facilitate the conversion of the Bulgarian people. However, Nicolas I and his successor Pope Adrian II also refused to recognize an autonomous Bulgarian Church, which cooled the relations between the two sides, but Bulgaria's shift towards Rome made the Byzantines much more conciliatory. In 870, at the Fourth Council of Constantinople, the Bulgarian Church was recognized as an Autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church under the supreme direction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. It was the first Church officially accepted, apart from the ancient Pentarchy. Eventually, in 893, the Old Bulgarian language became the third official language, recognized by the Churches and used during services and in Christian literature.

After the adoption of Christianity the country preserved many institutions from the pagan state of the Bulgars. 

Creation of the Slavic Writing System

Although the Bulgarian Knyaz succeeded in securing an autonomous Church, its higher clergy and theological books were still Greek, which impeded the efforts to convert the populace to the new religion. Between 860 and 863 the Byzantine monks of Greek origin  Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius created the Glagolitic alphabet, the first Slavic alphabet by order of the Byzantine Emperor, who aimed to convert Great Moravia to Orthodox Christianity. However, these attempts failed and in 886 their disciples Clement of Ohrid, Naum of Preslav and Angelarius, who were banished from Great Moravia, reached Bulgaria and were warmly welcomed by Boris I. The Bulgarian Knyaz commissioned the creation of two theological academies to be headed by the disciples where the future Bulgarian clergy was to be instructed in the local vernacular. Clement was sent to Ohrid in Macedonia,  a southwestern province of the Bulgarian kingdom, where he taught 3,500 pupils between 886 and 893. Naum established the literary school in the capital Pliska, moved later to the new capital Preslav. During the Council of Preslav in 893, Bulgaria adopted the Glagolitic alphabet and Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) language as official language of the church and state, and expelled the Byzantine clergy. In the 890s the Cyrillic script was created at the Preslav Literary School by the order of Simeon the Great.Paul Cubberley (1996) "The Slavic Alphabets". In Daniels and Bright, eds. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.

The Golden Age

By the late 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, Bulgaria extended to Epirus and Thessaly in the South, Bosnia in the West and controlled the whole of present-day Romania and Eastern Hungary to the North. The Serbian state came into existence in the mid-9th century as a response to the Bulgarian expansion West of the Morava.  Switching loyalties between Bulgaria and the Byzantines, the Serb rulers successfully resisted several Bulgarian invasions until 924 AD, when they were fully subordinated under the general and possibly Count of Sofia Marmais. Under Tsar Simeon I (Simeon the Great), who was educated in Constantinople, Bulgaria became again a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire and reached its greatest territorial extension.  Simeon I hoped to take Constantinople and fought a series of wars with the Byzantines throughout his long reign (893–927). The border close to the end of his rule reached the Northern limits of Attica in the South. Simeon I styled himself "Emperor (Tsar) of the Bulgarians and Autocrat of the Greeks", a title which was recognized by the Pope, but not by the Byzantine Emperor nor the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was recognized "Emperor (Tsar) of the Bulgarians" by the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch only at the end of his rule.

Between 894 and 896 he defeated the Byzantines and their allies the Magyars  in the "Trade War", so-called because the pretext of the war was the shifting of the Bulgarian market from Constantinople to Thessaloniki (Solun).Delev, Bǎlgarskata dǎržava pri car Simeon.  In the decisive battle of Bulgarophygon, the Byzantine army was routed,  and the war ended favourably for Bulgaria, though the peace was often violated by Simeon I.  In 904 he captured Solun, which was previously looted by the Arabs, and returned it to the Byzantines only after Bulgaria received all Slavic-populated areas in Macedonia and 20 fortresses in Albania, including the important town Drach. 

After the unrest in the Byzantine Empire following the death of Emperor Alexander in 913, Simeon I invaded Byzantine Thrace, but he was persuaded to stop in return for official recognition of his Imperial title and marriage of his daughter to the infant Emperor Constantine VII.   Simeon I was supposed to become regent of the Emperor and to temporarily rule the Byzantine Empire. However, after a plot in the Byzantine court, Empress Zoe, mother of Constantine VII, rejected the marriage and Simeon's title, and both sides prepared for a decisive battle. By 917 Simeon I broke every attempt of the Empire to form an alliance with the Magyars, the Pechenegs, and the Serbs, and the Byzantines were forced to fight alone. On 20 August the two armies clashed at Anchialus in one of the greatest battles in the Middle Ages.  The Byzantines suffered an unprecedented defeat, leaving 70,000 killed on the battlefield; the pursuing Bulgarian forces defeated the remainder of the enemy armies at Katasyrtai.  Constantinople was saved by a Serb attack from the West; the Serbs were thoroughly defeated, but their attack allowed the Byzantine admiral and later Emperor Romanos Lakepanos to prepare the defense of the city. In the following decade the Bulgarians gained control of the whole Balkan peninsula with the exception of Constantinople and Peloponnese.

In a Croatian–Bulgarian battle of 926, often called the Battle of the Bosnian Highlands, Duke Alogobotur attacked Croatia. The Croatian forces under the leadership of their King Tomislav completely devastated the Bulgarian army and stopped Simeon's expansion westwards.Bakalov, Istorija na Bǎlgarija, "Simeon I Veliki"

Decline

After Simeon's death in 927, Bulgarian power slowly declined. In a peace treaty the same year, the Byzantines officially recognized the Imperial title of his son Peter I and the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Peace with Byzantium, however, did not bring prosperity to Bulgaria. From the beginning of his rule, Peter faced internal problems and unrest with his brothers, and in the 930s he was forced to recognize the independence of Rascia.  The biggest blow came from the North: between 934 and 965 the country suffered five Magyar invasions.  In 944 Bulgaria was attacked by the Pechenegs, who looted the northeastern regions of the Empire. Under Peter I and Boris II the country was divided by the egalitarian religious heresy of the Bogomils. 

In 968 the country was attacked by the Kievan Rus, whose leader Svyatoslav I took Preslav  and established his capital at Preslavets.  Three years later, Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimiskes intervened in the struggle and defeated Svyatoslav at Dorostolon. Boris II was captured and ritually divested of his imperial title in Constantinople,  and eastern Bulgaria was proclaimed a Byzantine protectorate.

Fall

After the Byzantine takeover, the lands to the west of the Iskar River remained in Bulgarian hands, and resistance against the Byzantines was headed by the Comitopuli brothers. By 976, the fourth brother, Samuil, concentrated all power in his hands after the deaths of his eldest brother. When the rightful heir to the throne, Roman, escaped from captivity in Constantinople, he was recognized as Emperor by Samuil in Vidin,  and the latter remained the chief commander of the Bulgarian army. A brilliant general and good politician, he managed to turn the fortunes to the Bulgarians. The new Byzantine Emperor Basil II was decisively defeated in the battle of the Gates of Trajan in 986 and barely escaped.   Five years later he eliminated the Serbian state of Rascia.  In 997, following the death of Roman, the last heir of the Krum dynasty, Samuil was proclaimed Emperor of Bulgaria.  After 1001, however, the war turned in favor of the Byzantines, who captured the old capitals of Pliska and Preslav, and beginning in 1004 launched annual campaigns against Bulgaria. The Byzantines further benefited from a war between Bulgaria and the newly established Kingdom of Hungary in 1003. The Byzantine victories at Spercheios and Skopje decisively weakened the Bulgarian army, and in annual campaigns, Basil methodically reduced the Bulgarian strongholds. Eventually, at the Battle of Kleidion in 1014, the Bulgarians were completely defeated. The Bulgarian army was captured; it is said that 99 out of every 100 men were blinded, with the remaining hundredth man left with one eye so as to lead his compatriots home (earning Basil the moniker "Bulgaroktonos", the Bulgar Killer). When Tsar Samuil saw the broken remains of his army, he suffered a heart attack and died. In 1018, after the unexpected death of Tsar Ivan Vladislav, the Romans offered autonomy to the Bulgarian elite. A grand meeting between the Boyars and Basil happened in Odrin, after which Theme Bulgaria was established with Bulgarian archbishop on top, the Boyars kept their internal independence and in return acknowledged Basil as a ruler.

Culture

The cultural heritage of the First Bulgarian Empire is usually defined in Bulgarian historiography as the Pliska-Preslav culture, named after the first two capitals, Pliska and Preslav, where most of the surviving monuments are concentrated. Many monuments of that period have been found around Madara, Shumen, Novi Pazar, the village of Han Krum in north-eastern Bulgaria, as well in the territory of modern Romania, where Romanian archaeologists called it the "Dridu culture"  Remains left by the First Empire have also been discovered in southern Bessarabia, now divided between Ukraine and Moldova. 

Architecture

The most important feature of the early Bulgarian architecture was monumental construction known to the Romans but not used in the contemporary Byzantine Empire. There were two main types of construction employed in the building of Pliska. For the first one the construction materials were timber and bricks. The second type was construction of defensive walls using large carved limestone blocks put together with plaster. The same method was used in the construction of the fortress of Preslav, the military camp at Han Krum, the hunting palace in Madara, and in the fortress on the island of Păcuiul lui Soare.  Fortresses were mainly situated in the plains, unlike those constructed during the Second Bulgarian Empire.

After the adoption of Christianity in 864, intensive construction of churches and monasteries began throughout the Empire, including the Great Basilica of Pliska, which was one of the biggest structures of the time with its length of 99 m, and the splendid Golden Church in Preslav. Most of the churches built during that period had three naves. The Bulgarian capital was also famous for the ceramics that adorned its public and religious buildings. Beautiful icons and church altars were made of special ceramic tiles. There were numerous goldsmith and silversmith workshops producing fine jewellery.

Ceramics

One of the most famous features of the Pliska-Preslav culture was the decoration of palaces and churches with lacquered ceramic plates, which may indicate a Near Eastern (Arabic) influence. The ceramic plates were painted mostly with geometric or vegetative elements, while a few feature depictions of saints. Among the most notable of those is the well-preserved, 20-tile Icon of St Theodore, found in the ruins of the Saint Panteleimon Monastery in the outskirts of Preslav.  The tiles were either flat or tubular and were arranged to form friezes of repeating motifs. Due to the destruction of Pliska and Preslav, only fragments and details of the ceramic decoration have survived. Most finds of tiles, as well as archaeological evidence of the workshops producing them, come from Preslav and the surrounding region (chiefly the village of Patleina). 

The main sources for Bulgarian domestic use-oriented pottery are the necropoleis at Novi Pazar, Devnya, and Varna. The vessels were made with a potter's wheel, unlike Slavic practice. Two-story ovens were used for the annealing of the pottery. The shape and decoration of the early Bulgarian pottery was similar to that found in northern Caucasus, the Crimea, and the shores of the Sea of Azov.

Literature

Bulgarian literature is the oldest Slavic literature. Missionaries from Thessalonica, Cyril and Methodius, devised the Glagolitic alphabet, which was adopted in the Bulgarian Empire around 886. The alphabet and the Old Bulgarian language gave rise to a rich literary and cultural activity centered around the Preslav and Ohrid Schools, established by order of Boris I in 886. In the beginning of the 10th century, a new alphabet — the Cyrillic script - was developed on the basis of Greek and Glagolitic cursive at the Preslav Literary School. According to an alternative theory, the alphabet was devised at the Ohrid Literary School by Saint Clement of Ohrid, a Bulgarian scholar and disciple of Cyril and Methodius. A pious monk and hermit, St. Ivan of Rila (Ivan Rilski, 876–946), became the patron saint of Bulgaria.

During his reign Simeon gathered many scholars in his court who translated an enormous number of books from Greek and wrote many new works. Among the most prominent figures were Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, and Chernorizets Hrabar, who is believed by some historians to have been Simeon himself. Chernorizets Hrabar wrote his popular work An Account of Letters, Clement of Ohrid worked on translations from Greek and is credited with several important religious books, John Exarch wrote his Shestodnev and translated On Orthodox Christianity by John of Damascus, Naum of Preslav also had a significant contribution. Bulgarian scholars and works influenced most of the Slavic world, spreading Old Church Slavonic and the Cyrillic and Glagolithic alphabets to Kievan Rus', medieval Serbia, and medieval Croatia, as well as to non-Slavic medieval Wallachia and Moldavia.

Religion

After the creation of the Bulgarian state, the Bulgars and the Slavs continued to practice their indigenous religions. The Bulgar religion was monotheistic, and they believed in Tangra, the God of the Sky. When Omurtag and Leo V the Armenian concluded a peace treaty in 815, the Byzantine Emperor had to make an oath according to the Bulgarian traditions. Byzantine historians recorded that the "most Christian" ruler had to perform different pagan rites including cutting dogs and using them as witnesses for his oath.  The Slavs worshiped numerous deities, and their supreme god was Perun. There is evidence that Christianity remained widespread in Bulgaria during the first 150 years of its existence. In the mid-9th century, Boris I decided to adopt Christianity in order to firmly unite the population of the country. Bulgarian, (български език,) is an Indo-European language, a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family. It is the language of the Bulgarians.

Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), has several characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan language area), and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action.

With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Bulgarian became one of the official languages of the European Union.  

History

The development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several periods.
*Prehistoric period – occurred between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s.

*Old Bulgarian (9th to 11th century, also referred to as Old Church Slavonic) – a literary norm of the early southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible and other liturgical literature from Greek into Slavic.
*Middle Bulgarian (12th to 15th century) – a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of rich literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire.
*Modern Bulgarian – dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar and syntax changes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. The historical development of the Bulgarian language can be described as a transition from a highly synthetic language (Old Bulgarian) to a typical analytic language (Modern Bulgarian) with Middle Bulgarian as a midpoint in this transition.

Bulgarian was the first "Slavic" language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, in the oldest manuscripts this language was initially referred to as языкъ словяньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name , the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, the name  was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism is the Service of St. Cyril from Skopje (Скопски миней), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in the Greek hagiography of Saint Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century).

During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in the Balkan language area (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish, which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language, mostly lexically. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during the 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian, which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот (turnover, rev), непонятен (incomprehensible), ядро (nucleus) and others. As usual in such cases, many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well.

Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria (the most notable among them being Neofit Rilski and Ivan Bogorov),  there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835–1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued.  Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed,  and in 1899 the Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography.

Dialects

The language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ). This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's:
*Western dialects (informally called твърд говор/tvurd govor – "hard speech")
**the former yat is pronounced "e" in all positions. e.g. млеко (mlekò) – milk, хлеб (hleb) – bread. 
*Eastern dialects (informally called мек говор/mek govor – "soft speech")
**the former yat alternates between "ya" and "e": it is pronounced "ya" if it is under stress and the next syllable does not contain a front vowel (e or i) – e.g. мляко (mlyàko), хляб (hlyab), and "e" otherwise – e.g. млекар (mlekàr) – milkman, хлебар (hlebàr) – baker. This rule obtains in most Eastern dialects, although some have "ya", or a special "open e" sound, in all positions.

The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of yat. However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of all synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels – e.g. поляна (polyana) vs. полени (poleni) "meadow – meadows" or even жаба (zhaba) vs. жеби (zhebi) "frog – frogs", even though it co-occurs with the yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it (except a few dialects along the yat border, e.g. in the Pleven region). 

More examples of the yat umlaut in the literary language are:
*mlyàko (milk) [n.] → mlekàr (milkman); mlèchen (milky), etc.
*syàdam (sit) [vb.] → sedàlka (seat); sedàlishte (seat, e.g. of government), etc.
*svyat (holy) [adj.] → svetètz (saint); svetìlishte (sanctuary), etc. (in this example, ya/e comes not from historical yat but from small yus (ѧ), which normally becomes e in Bulgarian, but the word was influenced by Russian and the yat umlaut)

Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter yat (Ѣ), which was commonly called двойно е (dvoyno e) at the time, to express the historical yat vowel or at least root vowels displaying the ya – e alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both mlyako and mlekar were spelled with (Ѣ).  Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area was controlled by Serbia and Greece, but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation.

This had implications for some grammatical constructions:
*The third person plural pronoun and its derivatives. Before 1945 the pronoun "they" was spelled тѣ (tě), and its derivatives took this as the root. After the orthographic change, the pronoun and its derivatives were given an equal share of soft and hard spellings:
**"they" – те (te) → "them" – тях (tyah);
**"their(s)" – tehen (masc.); tyahna (fem.); tyahno (neut.); tehni (plur.)
*adjectives received the same treatment as тѢ:
**"whole" – tsyal → "the whole...": tseliyat (masc.); tsyalata (fem.); tsyaloto (neut.); tselite (plur.)

Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelled as other words with different meanings, e.g.:
*свѣт (svět) – "holy" became свят (svyat), spelt and pronounced the same as свят – "world".
*тѣ (tě) – "they" became те (te),

In spite of the literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia, will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations vidyal vs. videli (he has seen; they have seen), some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat" (e.g. videl, videli). Others, attempting to adhere to the norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e" (e.g. vidyal, vidyali). The latter hypercorrection is called свръхякане (svrah-yakane ≈"over-ya-ing").

;Shift from to
Bulgarian is the only Slavic language whose literary standard does not naturally contain the iotated sound (or its palatalized variant, except in non-Slavic foreign-loaned words). The sound is common in all modern Slavic languages (e.g. Czech medvěd "bear", Polish pięć "five", Serbo-Croatian jelen "deer", Ukrainian немає "there is not...", Macedonian пишување "writing", etc.), as well as some Western Bulgarian dialectal forms – e.g. ора̀н’е (standard Bulgarian: оране, "ploughing"),  however it is not represented in standard Bulgarian speech or writing. Even where occurs in other Slavic words, in Standard Bulgarian it is usually transcribed and pronounced as pure – e.g. Boris Yeltsin is "Eltsin" (Борис Елцин), Yekaterinburg is "Ekaterinburg" (Екатеринбург) and Sarajevo is "Saraevo" (Сараево), although  Jelena Janković is "Yelena" – Йелена Янкович.

Relationship to Macedonian

Until the period immediately following the Second World War, all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects.Mazon, Andre. Contes Slaves de la Macédoine Sud-Occidentale: Etude linguistique; textes et traduction; Notes de Folklore, Paris 1923, p. 4.      In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects.   Some local naming conventions included bolgarski, bugarski and so forth.  The codifiers of the standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise.  After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Slav Macedonian consciousness.  With the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified.  After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists as well as some linguists from other countries still consider Macedonian dialects as Bulgarian.   Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum.  Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgments.  

Alphabet

In 886 AD, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria in the beginning of the 10th century.

Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of the 19th century during the efforts on the codification of Modern Bulgarian until an alphabet with 32 letters, proposed by Marin Drinov, gained prominence in the 1870s. The alphabet of Marin Drinov was used until the orthographic reform of 1945, when the letters Ѣ, ѣ (called ят 'yat' or двойно е/е-двойно 'double e'), and Ѫ, ѫ (called Голям юс 'big yus', голяма носовка 'big nasal sign', ъ кръстато 'crossed yer' or широко ъ 'long yer'), were removed from its alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30.

With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts. 

Phonology

Bulgarian possesses a phonology similar to that of the rest of the South Slavic languages, notably lacking Serbo-Croatian's phonemic vowel length and tones and alveo-palatal affricates. Macedonian on the other side exhibits a phonology very similar to that of Bulgarian, which has spurred controversial debates regarding its status as a separate language. An interesting geographic pattern of dialectal distribution shows a tendency of western dialects to approach Serbo-Croatian's "hard" sound in contrast to the eastern dialect's "soft" sound due to pre-palatalization and rising of (similar to Russian) and ikanye (a merger of the two front vowels and ).

Bulgarian is typically analyzed as having six vowels, but at least two more reduced vowels can be encountered in everyday speech.

Grammar

The parts of speech in Bulgarian are divided in 10 different types, which are categorized in two broad classes: mutable and immutable. The difference is that mutable parts of speech vary grammatically, whereas the immutable ones do not change, regardless of their use. The five classes of mutables are: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns and verbs. Syntactically, the first four of these form the group of the noun or the nominal group. The immutables are: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections. Verbs and adverbs form the group of the verb or the verbal group.

Nominal morphology

Nouns and adjectives have the categories grammatical gender, number, case (only vocative) and definiteness in Bulgarian. Adjectives and adjectival pronouns agree with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns have gender and number and retain (as in nearly all Indo-European languages) a more significant part of the case system.

Nominal inflection

Gender

There are three grammatical genders in Bulgarian: masculine, feminine and neuter. The gender of the noun can largely be inferred from its ending: nouns ending in a consonant ("zero ending") are generally masculine (for example, град 'city', син 'son', мъж 'man'; those ending in –а/–я (-a/-ya) (жена 'woman', дъщеря 'daughter', улица 'street') are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –е, –о are almost always neuter (дете 'child', езеро 'lake'), as are those rare words (usually loanwords) that end in –и, –у, and –ю (цунами 'tsunami', табу 'taboo', меню 'menu'). Perhaps the most significant exception from the above are the relatively numerous nouns that end in a consonant and yet are feminine: these comprise, firstly, a large group of nouns with zero ending expressing quality, degree or an abstraction, including all nouns ending on –ост/–ест -{ost/est} (мъдрост 'wisdom', низост 'vileness', прелест 'loveliness', болест 'sickness', любов 'love'), and secondly, a much smaller group of irregular nouns with zero ending which define tangible objects or concepts (кръв 'blood', кост 'bone', вечер 'evening', нощ 'night'). There are also some commonly used words that end in a vowel and yet are masculine: баща 'father', дядо 'grandfather', чичо / вуйчо 'uncle', and others.

The plural forms of the nouns do not express their gender as clearly as the singular ones, but may also provide some clues to it: the ending –и (-i) is more likely to be used with a masculine or feminine noun (факти 'facts', болести 'sicknesses'), while one in –а/–я belongs more often to a neuter noun (езера 'lakes'). Also, the plural ending –ове occurs only in masculine nouns.

Number

Two numbers are distinguished in Bulgarian – singular and plural. A variety of plural suffixes is used, and the choice between them is partly determined by their ending in singular and partly influenced by gender; in addition, irregular declension and alternative plural forms are common. Words ending in –а/–я (which are usually feminine) generally have the plural ending –и, upon dropping of the singular ending. Of nouns ending in a consonant, the feminine ones also use –и, whereas the masculine ones usually have –и for polysyllables and –ове for monosyllables (however, exceptions are especially common in this group). Nouns ending in –о/–е (most of which are neuter) mostly use the suffixes –а, –я (both of which require the dropping of the singular endings) and –та.

With cardinal numbers and related words such as няколко ('several'), masculine nouns use a special count form in –а/–я, which stems from the Proto-Slavonic dual: два/три стола ('two/three chairs') versus тези столове ('these chairs'); cf. feminine две/три/тези книги ('two/three/these books') and neuter две/три/тези легла ('two/three/these beds'). However, a recently developed language norm requires that count forms should only be used with masculine nouns that do not denote persons. Thus, двама/трима ученици ('two/three students') is perceived as more correct than двама/трима ученика, while the distinction is retained in cases such as два/три молива ('two/three pencils') versus тези моливи ('these pencils').

Case

Cases exist only in the personal and some other pronouns (as they do in many other modern Indo-European languages), with nominative, accusative, dative and vocative forms. Vestiges are present in a number of phraseological units and sayings. The major exception are vocative forms, which are still in use for masculine (with the endings -е, -о and -ю) and feminine nouns (-[ь/й]о and -е) in the singular.

Definiteness (article)

In modern Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun, much like in the Scandinavian languages or Romanian (indefinite: човек, 'person'; definite: човекът, "the person") or to the first nominal constituent of definite noun phrases (indefinite: добър човек, 'a good person'; definite: добрият човек, "the good person"). There are four singular definite articles. Again, the choice between them is largely determined by the noun's ending in the singular.  Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят, when they are grammatical subjects, and –а/–я elsewhere. Nouns that end in a consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –а/–я (most of which are feminine, too) use –та. Nouns that end in –е/–о use –то.

The plural definite article is –те for all nouns except for those, whose plural form ends in –а/–я; these get –та instead. When postfixed to adjectives the definite articles are –ят/–я for masculine gender (again, with the longer form being reserved for grammatical subjects), –та for feminine gender, –то for neuter gender, and –те for plural.

;Modern developments
In Bulgarian adjective-noun phrases, only the adjective takes a definite article ending –
*chervenata masa – the red table
*cherveniyat stol – the red chair
Many of the English loanwords which have been adopted into the language since the end of communism, however, do not readily lend themselves to taking adjectival endings. This has caused an unprecedented shift in the language whereby, in certain cases, the adjective remains uninflected while the noun following it takes the grammatical ending. Examples include –
*internet potrebitelite – the internet users  
*web stranitsite – the web pages  

This type of combination is sometimes favoured even when the possibility of a traditional phrase structure exists, e.g. –
*btv novinite – "the btv news"
as opposed to novinite po btv ("the news on btv")
In this case, the brand name "btv" cannot be inflected and, being a brand, remains in Roman script within the sentence. 
See Use of Roman script in Bulgarian

Adjective and numeral inflection

Both groups agree in gender and number with the noun they are appended to. They may also take the definite article as explained above.

Pronouns

Pronouns may vary in gender, number, definiteness and are the only parts of speech that have retained case inflections. Three cases are exhibited by some groups of pronouns – nominative, accusative and dative. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, relative, reflexive, interrogative, negative, indefinitive, summative and possessive.

Verbal morphology and grammar

The Bulgarian verb can take up to 3,000  distinct forms, as it varies in person, number, voice, aspect, mood, tense and even gender.

Finite verbal forms

Finite verbal forms are simple or compound and agree with subjects in person (first, second and third) and number (singular, plural) in Bulgarian. In addition to that, past compound forms using participles vary in gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and voice (active and passive) as well as aspect (perfective/aorist and imperfective).

Aspect

Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect: perfective verbs signify the completion of the action of the verb and form past perfective (aorist) forms; imperfective ones are neutral with regard to it and form past imperfective forms. Most Bulgarian verbs can be grouped in perfective-imperfective pairs (imperfective/perfective: идвам/дойда "come", пристигам/пристигна “arrive”). Perfective verbs can be usually formed from imperfective ones by suffixation or prefixation, but the resultant verb often deviates in meaning from the original. In the pair examples above, aspect is stem-specific and therefore there is no difference in meaning.

In Bulgarian, there is also grammatical aspect. Three grammatical aspects are distinguishable: neutral, perfect and pluperfect. The neutral aspect comprises the three simple tenses and the future tense. The pluperfect is manifest in tenses that use double or triple auxiliary "be" participles like the past pluperfect subjunctive. Perfect constructions use a single auxiliary "be".

Mood

The traditional interpretation is that in addition to the four moods (наклонения) shared by most other European languages – indicative (изявително,) imperative (повелително), subjunctive (подчинително) and conditional (условно,) – in Bulgarian there is one more to describe a general category of unwitnessed events – the inferential (преизказно) mood. However, most contemporary Bulgarian linguists usually exclude the subjunctive mood and the inferential mood from the list of Bulgarian moods (thus placing the number of Bulgarian moods at a total of 3: indicative, imperative and conditional)  and don't consider them to be moods but view them as verbial morphosyntactic constructs or separate gramemes of the verb class. The possible existence of a few other moods has been discussed in the literature. Most Bulgarian school grammars teach the traditional view of 4 Bulgarian moods (as described above, but excluding the subjunctive and including the inferential).

Tense

There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time – present, past and future – which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses – i. e. "past imperfect" would mean that the verb is in past tense, in the imperfective aspect, and in the indicative mood (since no other mood is shown). There are more than 40 different tenses across Bulgarian's two aspects and five  moods.

In the indicative mood, there are three simple tenses:
*Present tense is a temporally unmarked simple form made up of the verbal stem and a complex suffix composed of the thematic vowel, or and the person/number ending (пристигам, priˈstigɐm, "I arrive/I am arriving"); only imperfective verbs can stand in the present indicative tense independently;
*Past imperfect is a simple verb form used to express an action which is contemporaneous or subordinate to other past actions; it is made up of an imperfective or a perfective verbal stem and the person/number ending (пристигах, пристигнех, 'I was arriving');
*Past aorist is a simple form used to express a temporarily independent, specific past action; it is made up of a perfective or an imperfective verbal stem and the person/number ending (пристигнах,, 'I arrived', четох,, 'I read');

In the indicative there are also the following compound tenses:
*Future tense is a compound form made of the particle ще and present tense (ще уча, 'I will study'); negation is expressed by the construction няма да and present tense (няма да уча, or the old-fashioned form не ще уча, 'I will not study');
*Past future tense is a compound form used to express an action which was to be completed in the past but was future as regards another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of the verb ща ('will'), the particle да ('to') and the present tense of the verb (e.g. щях да уча,, 'I was going to study');
*Present perfect is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past but is relevant for or related to the present; it is made up of the present tense of the verb съм ('be') and the past participle (e.g. съм учил, 'I have studied');
*Past perfect is a compound form used to express an action which was completed in the past and is relative to another past action; it is made up of the past tense of the verb съм and the past participle (e.g. бях учил, 'I had studied');
*Future perfect is a compound form used to express an action which is to take place in the future before another future action; it is made up of the future tense of the verb съм and the past participle (e.g. ще съм учил, 'I will have studied');
*Past future perfect is a compound form used to express a past action which is future with respect to a past action which itself is prior to another past action; it is made up of the past imperfect of ща, the particle да the present tense of the verb съм and the past participle of the verb (e.g. щях да съм учил,, 'I would have studied').

The four perfect constructions above can vary in aspect depending on the aspect of the main-verb participle; they are in fact pairs of imperfective and perfective aspects. Verbs in forms using past participles also vary in voice and gender.

There is only one simple tense in the imperative mood, the present, and there are simple forms only for the second-person singular, -и/-й (-i, -y/i), and plural, -ете/-йте (-ete, -yte), e.g. уча ('to study'): учи, sg., учете, pl.; играя 'to play': играй, играйте. There are compound imperative forms for all persons and numbers in the present compound imperative (да играе,), the present perfect compound imperative (да е играл,) and the rarely used present pluperfect compound imperative (да е бил играл,).

The conditional mood consists of five compound tenses, most of which are not grammatically distinguishable. The present, future and past conditional use a special past form of the stem би- (bi – "be") and the past participle (бих учил,, 'I would study'). The past future conditional and the past future perfect conditional coincide in form with the respective indicative tenses.

The subjunctive mood is rarely documented as a separate verb form in Bulgarian, (being, morphologically, a sub-instance of the quasi-infinitive construction with the particle да and a normal finite verb form), but nevertheless it is used regularly. The most common form, often mistaken for the present tense, is the present subjunctive ([по-добре] да отида, 'I had better go'). The difference between the present indicative and the present subjunctive tense is that the subjunctive can be formed by both perfective and imperfective verbs. It has completely replaced the infinitive and the supine from complex expressions (see below). It is also employed to express opinion about possible future events. The past perfect subjunctive ([по-добре] да бях отишъл, 'I'd had better be gone') refers to possible events in the past, which did not take place, and the present pluperfect subjunctive (да съм бил отишъл), which may be used about both past and future events arousing feelings of incontinence, suspicion, etc. and has no perfect to English translation.

The inferential mood has five pure tenses. Two of them are simple – past aorist inferential and past imperfect inferential – and are formed by the past participles of perfective and imperfective verbs, respectively. There are also three compound tenses – past future inferential, past future perfect inferential and past perfect inferential. All these tenses' forms are gender-specific in the singular. There are also conditional and compound-imperative crossovers. The existence of inferential forms has been attributed to Turkic influences by most Bulgarian linguists. Morphologically, they are derived from the perfect.

Non-finite verbal forms

Bulgarian has the following participles:
*Present active participle (сегашно деятелно причастие) is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffixes –ащ/–ещ/–ящ (четящ, 'reading') and is used only attributively;
*Present passive participle (сегашно страдателно причастие) is formed by the addition of the suffixes -им/аем/уем (четим, 'that can be read, readable');
*Past active aorist participle (минало свършено деятелно причастие) is formed by the addition of the suffix –л– to perfective stems (чел, '[have] read');
*Past active imperfect participle (минало несвършено деятелно причастие) is formed by the addition of the suffixes –ел/–ал/–ял to imperfective stems (четял, '[have been] reading');
*Past passive aorist participle (минало свършено страдателно причастие) is formed from aorist/perfective stems with the addition of the suffixes -н/–т (прочетен, 'read'; убит, 'killed'); it is used predicatively and attributively;
*Past passive imperfect participle (минало несвършено страдателно причастие) is formed from imperfective stems with the addition of the suffix –н (прочитан, '[been] read'; убиван, '[been] being killed'); it is used predicatively and attributively;
*Adverbial participle (деепричастие) is usually formed from imperfective present stems with the suffix –(е)йки (четейки, 'while reading'), relates an action contemporaneous with and subordinate to the main verb and is originally a Western Bulgarian form.

The participles are inflected by gender, number, and definiteness, and are coordinated with the subject when forming compound tenses (see tenses above). When used in attributive role the inflection attributes are coordinated with the noun that is being attributed.

Reflexive verbs

Bulgarian uses reflexive verbal forms (i.e. actions which are performed by the agent onto him- or herself) which behave in a similar way as they do in many other Indo-European languages, such as French and Spanish. The reflexive is expressed by the invariable particle se,Unlike in French and Spanish, where se is only used for the 3rd person, and other particles, such as me and te, are used for the 1st and 2nd persons singular, e.g. je me lave/me lavo – I wash myself. originally a clitic form of the accusative reflexive pronoun. Thus –
*miya – I wash, miya se – I wash myself, miesh se – you wash yourself
*pitam – I ask, pitam se – I ask myself, pitash se – you ask yourself
When the action is performed on others, other particles are used, just like in any normal verb, e.g. –
*miya te – I wash you
*pitash me – you ask me
Sometimes, the reflexive verb form has a similar but not necessarily identical meaning to the non-reflexive verb –
*kazvam – I say, kazvam se – my name is (lit. "I call myself")
*vizhdam – I see, vizhdame se – "we see ourselves" or "we meet each other"
In other cases, the reflexive verb has a completely different meaning from its non-reflexive counterpart –
*karam – to drive, karam se – to have a row with someone
*gotvya – to cook, gotvya se – to get ready
*smeya – to dare, smeya se – to laugh
;Indirect actions
When the action is performed on an indirect object, the particles change to si and its derivatives –
*kazvam si – I say to myself, kazvash si – you say to yourself, kazvam ti – I say to you
*peya si – I am singing to myself, pee si – she is singing to herself, pee mu – she is singing to him
*gotvya si – I cook for myself, gotvyat si – they cook for themselves, gotvya im – I cook for them
In some cases, the particle si is ambiguous between the indirect object and the possessive meaning  –
*miya si ratsete – I wash my hands, miya ti ratsete – I wash your hands
*pitam si priyatelite – I ask my friends, pitam ti priyatelite – I ask your friends
*iskam si topkata – I want my ball (back)
The difference between transitive and intransitive verbs can lead to significant differences in meaning with minimal change, e.g. –
*haresvash me – you like me, haresvash mi – I like you (lit. you are pleasing to me)
*otivam – I am going, otivam si – I am going home
The particle si is often used to indicate a more personal relationship to the action, e.g. –
*haresvam go – I like him, haresvam si go – no precise translation, roughly translates as "he's really close to my heart"
*stanahme priyateli – we became friends, stanahme si priyateli – same meaning, but sounds friendlier
*mislya – I am thinking (usually about something serious), mislya si – same meaning, but usually about something personal and/or trivial

Adverbs

The most productive way to form adverbs is to derive them from the neuter singular form of the corresponding adjective—e.g. бързо (fast), силно (hard), странно (strange)—but adjectives ending in -ки use the masculine singular form (i.e. ending in -ки), instead—e.g. юнашки (heroically), мъжки (bravely, like a man), майсторски (skillfully). The same pattern is used to form adverbs from the (adjective-like) ordinal numerals, e.g. първо (firstly), второ (secondly), трето (thirdly), and in some cases from (adjective-like) cardinal numerals, e.g. двойно (twice as/double), тройно (three times as), петорно (five times as).

The remaining adverbs are formed in ways that are no longer productive in the language. A small number are original (not derived from other words), for example: тук (here), там (there), вътре (inside), вън (outside), много (very/much) etc. The rest are mostly fossilized case forms, such as:
*archaic locative forms of some adjectives, e.g. добре (well), зле (badly), твърде (too, rather), and nouns горе (up), утре (tomorrow), лете (in the summer);
*archaic instrumental forms of some adjectives, e.g. тихом (quietly), скришом (furtively), слепешком (blindly), and nouns, e.g. денем (during the day), нощем (during the night), редом (one next to the other), духом (spiritually), цифром (in figures), словом (with words); or verbs: тичешком (while running), лежешком (while lying), стоешком (while standing).
*archaic accusative forms of some nouns: днес (today), нощес (tonight), сутрин (in the morning), зиме/зимъс (in winter);
*archaic genitive forms of some nouns: довечера (tonight), снощи (last night), вчера (yesterday);
*homonymous and etymologically identical to the feminine singular form of the corresponding adjective used with the definite article: здравата (hard), слепешката (gropingly); the same pattern has been applied to some verbs, e.g. тичешката (while running), лежешката (while lying), стоешката (while standing).
*derived from cardinal numerals by means of a non-productive suffix: веднъж (once), дваж (twice), триж (thrice);

Adverbs can sometimes be reduplicated to emphasize the qualitative or quantitative properties of actions, moods or relations as performed by the subject of the sentence: "бавно-бавно" ("rather slowly"), "едва-едва" ("with great difficulty"), "съвсем-съвсем" ("quite", "thoroughly").

Syntax

Bulgarian employs clitic doubling, mostly for emphatic purposes. For example, the following constructions are common in colloquial Bulgarian:

Аз (го) дадох подаръка на Мария.
(lit. "I gave it the present to Maria.")

Аз (ѝ го) дадох подаръка на Мария.
(lit. "I gave her it the present to Maria.")

The phenomenon is practically obligatory in the spoken language in the case of inversion signalling information structure (in writing, clitic doubling may be skipped in such instances, with a somewhat bookish effect):

Подаръка (ѝ) го дадох на Мария.
(lit. "The present [to her] it I-gave to Maria.")

На Мария ѝ (го) дадох подаръка.
(lit. "To Maria to her [it] I-gave the present.")

Sometimes, the doubling signals syntactic relations, thus:

Петър и Иван ги изядоха вълците.
(lit. "Petar and Ivan them ate the wolves.")
Transl.: "Petar and Ivan were eaten by the wolves".

This is contrasted with:

Петър и Иван изядоха вълците.
(lit. "Petar and Ivan ate the wolves")
Transl.: "Petar and Ivan ate the wolves".

In this case, clitic doubling can be a colloquial alternative of the more formal or bookish passive voice, which would be constructed as follows:
Петър и Иван бяха изядени от вълците.
(lit. "Petar and Ivan were eaten by the wolves.")

Clitic doubling is also fully obligatory, both in the spoken and in the written norm, in clauses including several special expressions that use the short accusative and dative pronouns such as играе ми се (I feel like playing), студено ми е (I am cold), and боли ме ръката (my arm hurts):

На мен ми се спи, а на Иван му се играе.
(lit. "To me to me it-feels-like-sleeping, and to Ivan to him it-feels-like-playing")
Transl.: "I feel like sleeping, and Ivan feels like playing."
На нас ни е студено, а на вас ви е топло.
(lit. "To us to us it-is cold, and to you-plur. to you-plur. it-is warm")
Transl.: "We are cold, and you are warm."
Иван го боли гърлото, а мене ме боли главата.
(lit. Ivan him aches the throat, and me me aches the head)
Transl.: Ivan has sore throat, and I have a headache.

Except the above examples, clitic doubling is considered inappropriate in a formal context. Bulgarian grammars usually do not treat this phenomenon extensively.

Other features

Questions

Questions in Bulgarian which do not use a question word (such as who? what? etc.) are formed with the particle ли after the verb; a subject is not necessary, as the verbal conjugation suggests who is performing the action:
*Идваш – 'you are coming'; Идваш ли? – 'are you coming?'

While the particle ли generally goes after the verb, it can go after a noun or adjective if a contrast is needed:
*Идваш ли с нас? – 'are you coming with us?';
*С нас ли идваш? – 'are you coming with us'?
A verb is not always necessary, e.g. when presenting a choice:
*Той ли? – 'him?'; Жълтият ли? – 'the yellow one?'The word или ('either') has a similar etymological root: и + ли ('and') – e.g. (или) Жълтият или червеният – '(either) the yellow one or the red one.' [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/или wiktionary]

Rhetorical questions can be formed by adding ли to a question word, thus forming a "double interrogative" –
*Кой? – 'Who?'; Кой ли?! – 'I wonder who(?)'
The same construction +не ('no') is an emphasised positive –
*Кой беше там? – 'Who was there?' – Кой ли не! – 'Nearly everyone! (lit. 'I wonder who wasn't there')

Significant verbs

Съм

The verb съмсъм is pronounced similar to English "sum". – 'to be' is also used as an auxiliary for forming the perfect, the passive and the conditional:
*past tense – – 'I have hit'
*passive – – 'I am hit'
*past passive – – 'I was hit'
*conditional – – 'I would hit'

Two alternate forms of съм exist:
*бъда – interchangeable with съм in most tenses and moods, but never in the present indicative – e.g. ('I want to be'), ('I will be here'); in the imperative, only бъда is used – ('be here');
*бивам – slightly archaic, imperfective form of бъда – e.g. ('he used to get threats'); in contemporary usage, it is mostly used in the negative to mean "ought not", e.g. ('you shouldn't smoke').It is a common reply to the question Kak e? 'How are things?' (lit. 'how is it?') – 'alright' (lit. 'it [repetitively] is') or 'How are you?' - 'I'm OK'.

Ще

The impersonal verb ще (lit. 'it wants')ще – from the verb ща – 'to want.' The present tense of this verb in the sense of 'to want' is archaic and only used colloquially. Instead, искам is used. is used to for forming the (positive) future tense:
* – 'I am going'
* – 'I will be going'
The negative future is formed with the invariable construction няма да (see няма below):Formed from the impersonal verb няма  (lit. 'it does not have') and the subjunctive particle да ('that')
* – 'I will not be going'
The past tense of this verb – щях is conjugated to form the past conditional ('would have' – again, with да, since it is irrealis):
* – 'I would have gone;' 'you would have gone'

Имам and нямам

The verbs имам ('to have') and нямам ('to not have'):
*the third person singular of these two can be used impersonally to mean 'there is/there are' or 'there isn't/aren't any,'They can also be used on their own as a reply, with no object following: има – 'there are some'; – 'there aren't any' – compare German keine.  e.g.
** ('there is still time' – compare Spanish hay);
** ('there is no one there').
*The impersonal form няма is used in the negative future – (see ще above).
**няма used on its own can mean simply 'I won't' – a simple refusal to a suggestion or instruction.

Diminutives and augmentatives

Diminutive

Usually done by adding -че, -це or -(ч)ка. The first two of these change the gender to the neuter:
* ('car') → ('baby's buggy')
* or ('cat') → ('kitten')

Affectionate Form

Sometimes proper nouns and words referring to friends or family members can have a diminutive ending added to show affection. These constructions are all referred to as "na galeno" (lit. "caressing" form):
*mayka (mother) → maychitse; tatko (father) → tatentse
Such words can be used both from parent to child, and vice versa, as can:
*batko (big brother) → batentse; priyatel (friend) → priyatelche.

Personal names are shortened:
*Georgi → Gosho/Gotse, Mihail → Misho, Angel → Gele/Acho, Ivan → Vanko, Vasil → Vasko
*Anna → Ani, Irina → Reni

There is an interesting trend (which is comparatively modern, although it might well have deeper, dormant roots) where the feminine ending "-ka" and the definite suffix "-ta" ("the") are added to male names – note that this is affectionate and not at all insulting (in fact, the endings are not even really considered as being "feminine"):
*Ivan → Vànkata, Acho → Àchkata.

The female equivalent would be to add the neuter ending "-to" to the diminutive form:
*Nadia → Nadeto, Sonia → Soncheto

Augmentative

This is to present words to sound larger – usually by adding "-shte":
*chovek (person) → chovechishte (huge person) (note the root change k→ch)
Some words only exist in an augmentative form – e.g.
*zrelishte "(awesome) spectacle" (from the old Slavic root "to see")
*svlachishte "landslide" – from svlicham "to drag down"

Conjunctions and particles

"But"

In Bulgarian, there are several conjunctions all translating into English as "but", which are all used in distinct situations. They are но (no), ама (amà), а (a), ами (amì), and ала (alà) (and обаче (obache) – "however", identical in use to но).

While there is some overlapping between their uses, in many cases they are specific. For example, ami is used for a choice – ne tova, ami onova – "not this one, but that one" (comp. Spanish sino), while ama is often used to provide extra information or an opinion – kazah go, ama sgreshih – "I said it, but I was wrong". Meanwhile, a provides contrast between two situations, and in some sentences can even be translated as "although", "while" or even "and" – az rabotya, a toy blee – "I'm working, and he's daydreaming".

Very often, different words can be used to alter the emphasis of a sentence – e.g. while "pusha, no ne tryabva" and "pusha, a ne tryabva" both mean "I smoke, but I shouldn't", the first sounds more like a statement of fact ("...but I mustn't"), while the second feels more like a judgement ("...but I oughtn't"). Similarly, az ne iskam, ama toy iska and az ne iskam, a toy iska both mean "I don't want to, but he does", however the first emphasises the fact that he wants to, while the second emphasises the wanting rather than the person.

Ala is interesting in that, while it feels archaic, it is often used in poetry and frequently in children's stories, since it has quite a moral/ominous feel to it.

Some common expressions use these words, and some can be used alone as interjections:
*da, ama ne (lit. "yes, but no") – means "you're wrong to think so".
*ama can be tagged onto a sentence to express surprise: ama toy spi! – "he's sleeping!"
*ами! – "you don't say!", "really!"

 Vocative particles 

Bulgarian has several abstract particles which are used to strengthen a statement. These have no precise translation in English.Perhaps most similar in use is the tag "man", but the Bulgarian particles are more abstract still. The particles are strictly informal and can even be considered rude by some people and in some situations. They are mostly used at the end of questions or instructions.
*бе (be) – the most common particle. It can be used to strengthen a statement or, sometimes, to indicate derision of an opinion, aided by the tone of voice. (Originally purely masculine, it can now be used towards both men and women.)
**kazhi mi, be – tell me (insistence); taka li, be? – is that so? (derisive); vyarno li, be? – you don't say!.
*де (de) – expresses urgency, sometimes pleading.
**stavay, de! – come on, get up!
*ма (ma) (feminine only) – originally simply the feminine counterpart of be, but today perceived as rude and derisive (compare the similar evolution of the vocative forms of feminine names).
*бре (bre, masculine), мари (mari, feminine) – similar to be and ma, but archaic. Although informal, can sometimes be heard being used by older people.

Modal Particles

These are "tagged" on to the beginning or end of a sentence to express the mood of the speaker in relation to the situation. They are mostly interrogative or slightly imperative in nature. There is no change in the grammatical mood when these are used (although they may be expressed through different grammatical moods in other languages).
*нали (nalì) – is a universal affirmative tag, like "isn't it"/"won't you", etc. (it is invariable, like the French n'est-ce pas). It can be placed almost anywhere in the sentence, and does not always require a verb:
**shte doydesh, nali? – you are coming, aren't you?; nali iskaha? – didn't they want to?; nali onzi? – that one, right?;
**it can express quite complex thoughts through simple constructions – nali nyamashe? – "I thought you weren't going to!" or "I thought there weren't any!" (depending on context – the verb nyama presents general negation/lacking, see "nyama", above).
*дали (dalì) – expresses uncertainty (if in the middle of a clause, can be translated as "whether") – e.g. dali shte doyde? – "do you think he will come?"
*нима (nimà) – presents disbelief ~"don't tell me that..." – e.g. nima iskash?! – "don't tell me you want to!". It is slightly archaic, but still in use. Can be used on its own as an interjection – nima!
*дано (danò) – expresses hope – shte doyde – "he will come"; dano doyde – "I hope he comes" (comp. Spanish ojalá). Grammatically, dano is entirely separate from the verb nadyavam se – "to hope".
*нека (nèka) – means "let('s)" – e.g. neka doyde – "let him come"; when used in the first person, it expresses extreme politeness: neka da otidem... – "let us go" (in colloquial situations, haide, below, is used instead).
**neka, as an interjection, can also be used to express judgement or even Schadenfreude – neka mu! – "he deserves it!".

 Intentional particles 

These express intent or desire, perhaps even pleading. They can be seen as a sort of cohortative side to the language. (Since they can be used by themselves, they could even be considered as verbs in their own right.) They are also highly informal.
*хайде (hàide) – "come on", "let's"
**e.g. haide, po-burzo – "faster!"
*я (ya) – "let me" – exclusively when asking someone else for something. It can even be used on its own as a request or instruction (depending on the tone used), indicating that the speaker wants to partake in or try whatever the listener is doing.
**ya da vidya – let me see; ya? or ya! – "let me.../give me..."
*недей (nedèi) (plur. nedèyte) – can be used to issue a negative instruction – e.g. nedey da idvash – "don't come" (nedey + subjunctive). In some dialects, the construction nedey idva (nedey + preterite) is used instead. As an interjection – nedei! – "don't!" (See section on imperative mood).

These particles can be combined with the vocative particles for greater effect, e.g. ya da vidya, be (let me see), or even exclusively in combinations with them, with no other elements, e.g. haide, de! (come on!); nedey, de! (I told you not to!).

Pronouns of Quality

Bulgarian has several pronouns of quality which have no direct parallels in English – kakuv (what sort of); takuv (this sort of); onakuv (that sort of – colloq.); nyakakuv (some sort of); nikakuv (no sort of); vsyakakuv (every sort of); and the relative pronoun kakuvto (the sort of...that...). The adjective ednakuv ("the same") derives from the same radical.Like the demonstratives, these take the same form as pronouns as they do as adjectives – ie. takuv means both "this kind of..." (adj.) and this kind of person/thing (pron., depending on the context).

Example phrases include:
*kakuv chovek?! – "what person?!"; kakuv chovek e toy? – what sort of person is he?
*ne poznavam takuv – "I don't know any (people like that)" (lit. "I don't know this sort of (person)")
*nyakakvi hora – lit. "some type of people", but the understood meaning is "a bunch of people I don't know"
*vsyakakvi hora – "all sorts of people"
*kakuv iskash? – "which type do you want?"; nikakuv! – "I don't want any!"/"none!"

An interesting phenomenon is that these can be strung along one after another in quite long constructions, e.g.

An extreme (colloquial) sentence, with almost no physical meaning in it whatsoever – yet which does have perfect meaning to the Bulgarian ear – would be :
*"kakva e taya takava edna nyakakva nikakva?!"
*inferred translation – "what kind of no-good person is she?"
*literal translation: "what kind of – is – this one here (she) – this sort of – one – some sort of – no sort of"
—Note: the subject of the sentence is simply the pronoun "taya" (lit. "this one here"; colloq. "she").

Similar "meaningless" expressions are extremely common in spoken Bulgarian, especially when the speaker is finding it difficult to describe something.

Inflection and derivation

Bulgarian has a rich set of inflectional and derivational processes. In the simplest terms, this can be seen in the way that most nouns and verbs are formed – namely by adding prefixes and suffixes to a rather limited number of roots, which creates almost a dozen new words, along with a couple of dozen derivatives thereof. Here are some examples using the root word klyuch (ключ) "key/switch":

Nouns:

Adjectives:

Verbs:

An extreme example using this root might be:
pre–v–klyuch–en–i–te — the ones that have been switched over ("превключените")[http://www.dnevnik.bg/print/arhiv_pari/2000/07/01/1498773_opel_predizvikva_konkurentite_si_na_pazara/ Opel are challenging their market competition] (in Bulgarian) Dnevnik, 1 Jul 2000. Retrieved 17 Sept 2012.

Adjectives can also take up to three endings that are added to the masculine root, for example:

Verbs can take several prefixes, thus expressing increasingly complex ideas. For example, the bol– root, which has to do with ailments (bol-ka – pain; bol-est – illness; bol-i – it hurts, etc.), can be used to express various different stages of falling ill:

Similarly, the root kri–, referring to hiding/discovery:

Miscellaneous

*The commonly cited phenomenon of Bulgarian people shaking their head for "yes" and nodding for "no" is true but, with the influence of Western culture, ever rarer, and almost non-existent among the younger generation. (It should be noted, however, that the shaking and nodding are not identical to the Western gestures. The "nod" for no is actually an upward movement of the head rather than a downward one, while the shaking of the head for yes is not completely horizontal, but also has a slight "wavy" aspect to it.)
**A dental click (similar to the English "tsk") also means "no" (informal), as does ъ-ъ (the only occurrence in Bulgarian of the glottal stop). The two are often said with the upward 'nod'.
*Bulgarian has an extensive vocabulary covering family relationships. The biggest range of words is for uncles and aunts, e.g. chicho (your father's brother), vuicho (your mother's brother), svako (your aunt's husband); an even larger amount of synonyms for these three exists in the various dialects of Bulgarian, including kaleko, lelincho, tetin, etc. The words do not only refer to the closest members of the family (such as brat – brother, but batko/bate – older brother, sestra – sister, but kaka – older sister), but extend to its furthest reaches, e.g. badzhanak from Turkish bacanak (the relationship of the husbands of two sisters to each other) and etarva (the relationships of two brothers' wives to each other). For all in-laws, there are specific names, e.g. a woman's husband's brother is her dever and his husband's sister is her zalva. In the traditional rural extended family before 1900, there existed separate subcategories for different brothers-in-law/sisters-in-law of a woman with regard to their age relative to hers, e.g. instead of simply a dever there could be a braino (older), a draginko (younger), or an ubavenkyo (who is still a child).
*As with many Slavic languages, the double negative in Bulgarian is grammatically correct, while some forms of it, when used instead of a single negative form, are grammatically incorrect. The following are literal translations of grammatically correct Bulgarian sentences that utilize a double or multiple negation: "Никой никъде никога нищо не е направил." (multiple negation without the use of a compound double negative form, i.e. using a listing of several successive single negation words) – "Nobody never nowhere nothing did not do." (translated as "nobody has ever done anything, anywhere"); "Никога не съм бил там." (double negation without the use of a compound double negative form, i.e. using a listing of several successive single negation words) – I never did not go there ("[I] have never been there"); Никога никакви чувства не съм имал! – I never no feelings had not have!  (I have never had any feelings!). The same applies for Macedonian.

Lexis

Most of the vocabulary  of modern Bulgarian consists of derivations of some 2,000 words inherited from proto-Slavic through the mediation of Old and Middle Bulgarian. Thus, the native lexical terms in Bulgarian account for 70% to 75% of the lexicon.

The remaining 25% to 30% are loanwords from a number of languages, as well as derivations of such words. The languages which have contributed most to Bulgarian are Russian, French and to a lesser extent Turkish and English. Also Latin and Greek are the source of many words, used mostly in international terminology. Many of the numerous loanwords from Turkish (and, via Turkish, from Arabic and Persian) which were adopted into Bulgarian during the long period of Ottoman rule, have been replaced with native terms. In addition, both specialized (usually coming from the field of science) and commonplace English words (notably abstract, commodity/service-related or technical terms) have also penetrated Bulgarian since the second half of the 20th century, especially since 1989. A noteworthy portion of this English-derived terminology has attained some unique features in the process of its introduction to native speakers, and this has resulted in peculiar derivations that set the newly formed loanwords apart from the original words (mainly in pronunciation), although many loanwords are completely identical to the source words. A growing number of international neologisms are also being widely adopted, causing controversy between younger generations who, in general, are raised in the era of digital globalization, and the older, more conservative educated purists.

Comparison with other Slavic languages

Borrowings

Some very frequent expressions have been borrowed from other languages. Most of them are somewhat informal.
*Мерси (mersí) – Thank you; from French (although this word is probably even more common than native "Благодаря", it is inappropriate in very official or solemn contexts)
*Чао (cháo) – Bye; from Italian (the informal counterpart of native "Довиждане", this word is more common than the native)
*Супер (súper) – Super; (from Latin, colloquial; note – "Super" remains the same regardless of quantity or gender, although an even more colloquial adjective суперски (súperski) does decline as usual)
*Ало (álo) – Hello on the phone; from French (unlike the above, this word is stylistically neutral).

Common expressions

*Здравей (zdravéy) – Hello
*Здрасти (zdrásti) – Hi This is a more informal form of Здравей In polite conversation, the "Vi" form is used by both parties: zdraveyte.
*Добро утро (dobró útro) – Good morning
*Добър ден (dóbər dén) – Good day
*Добър вечер (dóbər vécher) – Good evening
*Лека нощ (léka nósht) – Good night
*Довиждане (dovízhdane) – Good-bye
*Как се казваш? (kak se kazvash) – What is your name (informal)?
*Кой си ти? (kóy si ti) [informal, masculine] – Who are you?
*Коя си ти? (koyá si ti) [informal, feminine] – Who are you?
*Кой сте вие? (kóy ste víe) [formal, masculine]
*Коя сте вие? (koyá ste víe) [formal, feminine] – Who are you?
(In the above two examples, the formal expression uses a plural verb but a singular pronoun, which allows speakers to distinguish the two grammatical forms.)
*Кои сте вие? (koí ste víe) [plural form] – Who are you?
*Как си? (kák si) [informal] – How are you?
*Как сте? (kák sté) [formal, and also plural form] – How are you?
*Да (dá) – Yes
*Не (né) – No
*Може би (mózhe bí) – Maybe
*Какво правиш? (kakvó právish) [informal] – What are you doing?
*Какво правите? (kakvó právite) [formal, and also plural form] – What are you doing?
*Добре съм (dobré səm) – I’m fine
*Всичко [най-]хубаво (vsíchko [nay-]húbavo) – All the best
*Поздрави (pózdravi) – Regards
*Благодаря (blagodaryə́) [formal and informal] – Thank you
*Моля (mólya) – Please
*Моля (mólia) – You're welcome
*Извинете! (izvinéte) [formal] – Excuse me!
*Извинявай! (izvinyávai) [informal] – Sorry!
*Обичам те! (obícham te) – I love you!
*Колко е часът? (kólko e chasə́t) – What’s the time?
*Говорите ли…? (govórite li…) – Do you speak… ?
…английски (anglíyski) – English
…български (bə́lgarski) – Bulgarian
…немски (némski) – German
…полски (polski) – Polish
…руски (ruski) – Russian
…холандски (holándski) – Dutch
…гръцки (grə́tski) – Greek
…сръбски (srə́bski) – Serbian
…италиански (italiánski) – Italian
…испански (ispánski) – Spanish
…френски (frénski) – French
…японски (yapónski) – Japanese
…китайски (kitáyski) – Chinese
…корейски (koréyski) – Korean
…арабски (arabski) – Arabic
*Ще се видим скоро (shté sé vídim skóro) – We'll see each other soon
*Ще се видим утре (shté sé vídim útre) – We'll see each other tomorrow The European Union (EU) is a politico-economic union of  member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of  , and an estimated population of over 510 million. The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintain common policies on trade,  agriculture,  fisheries, and regional development.  Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished.  A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency.

The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making.   The seven principal decision-making bodies—known as the institutions of the European Union—are the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the European Court of Auditors.

The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), formed by the Inner Six countries in 1951 and 1958, respectively. The community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has, as yet, ever left the EU, a non-binding referendum in the United Kingdom in June 2016 supported leaving. The Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009.

Covering 7.3% of the world population,  the EU in 2014 generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of 18.495 trillion US dollars, constituting approximately 24% of global nominal GDP and 17% when measured in terms of purchasing power parity.  Additionally, 26 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Program. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8, and the G-20. Because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as a current or as a potential superpower. 

History

Preliminary (194557)

After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism which had devastated the continent.  The 1948 Hague Congress was a pivotal moment in European federal history, as it led to the creation of the European Movement International and of the College of Europe, where Europe's future leaders would live and study together.  1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was declared to be "a first step in the federation of Europe."  The supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. 

Treaty of Rome (195792)

In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community (EEC) and established a customs union. They also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958.

The EEC and Euratom were created separately from ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly.  The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein (Hallstein Commission) and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand (Armand Commission) and then Étienne Hirsch. Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members.  

Through the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power. Nevertheless, in 1965 an agreement was reached and on 1 July 1967 the Merger Treaty created a single set of institutions for the three communities, which were collectively referred to as the European Communities.   Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission (Rey Commission). 

In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark (including Greenland, which later left the Community in 1985, following a dispute over fishing rights), Ireland, and the United Kingdom.  Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum. In 1979, the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held. 

Greece joined in 1981, Portugal and Spain following in 1986.  In 1985, the Schengen Agreement paved the way for the creation of open borders without passport controls between most member states and some non-member states.  In 1986, the European flag began to be used by the Community  and the Single European Act was signed.

In 1990, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, the former East Germany became part of the Community as part of a reunified Germany.  With further enlargement planned to include the former communist states, as well as Cyprus and Malta, the Copenhagen criteria for candidate members to join the EU were agreed upon in June 1993.

Maastricht Treaty (1992–present) 

The European Union was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty—whose main architects were Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand—came into force on 1 November 1993.  The treaty also gave the name European Community to the EEC, even if it was referred as such before the treaty. In 1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU. In 2002, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 of the member states. Since then, the eurozone has increased to encompass 19 countries. In 2004, the EU saw its biggest enlargement to date when Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the Union. In 2007, Romania and Bulgaria became EU members. The same year, Slovenia adopted the euro, followed in 2008 by Cyprus and Malta, by Slovakia in 2009, by Estonia in 2011, by Latvia in 2014 and by Lithuania in 2015.

On 1 December 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and reformed many aspects of the EU. In particular, it changed the legal structure of the European Union, merging the EU three pillars system into a single legal entity provisioned with a legal personality, created a permanent President of the European Council, the first of which was Herman Van Rompuy, and strengthened the position of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.  In 2012, the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize for having "contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe."   In 2013, Croatia became the 28th EU member.   

From the beginning of 2010s, the European Union is going through a series of tests, including a debt crisis in some Eurozone countries, increasing migration from Middle Eastern countries, Russian military intervention in Ukraine and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU.

Structural evolution

The following timeline illustrates the integration that has led to the formation of the present union, in terms of structural development driven by international treaties:

British withdrawal

A referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union (announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron on 20 February 2016) was held on 23 June 2016, following years of campaigning by eurosceptics. The result gave a majority of with 51.9% to leave, and 48.1% to remain, on a turnout of 72.2% of registered voters. , the UK has not yet initiated the formal withdrawal procedure, and will not leave the EU until either two years after they notify the European Council of their decision to withdraw, or on the coming into force of a withdrawal agreement.[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36618317 EU Brexit referendum: UK 'must not delay leaving'], BBC News. Retrieved 24 June 2016.

Geography

The EU's member states cover an area of 4423147 km2.This figure includes the extra-European territories of member states which are part of the European Union and excludes the European territories of member states which are not part of the Union. For more information see Special member state territories and the European Union. The EU's highest peak is Mont Blanc in the Graian Alps,  above sea level.  The lowest points in the EU are Lammefjorden, Denmark and Zuidplaspolder, Netherlands, at 7 m (23 ft) below sea level. 
The landscape, climate, and economy of the EU are influenced by its coastline, which is 65993 km long.

Including the overseas territories of France which are located outside the continent of Europe, but which are members of the union, the EU experiences most types of climate from Arctic (North-East Europe) to tropical (French Guyana), rendering meteorological averages for the EU as a whole meaningless. The majority of the population lives in areas with a temperate maritime climate (North-Western Europe and Central Europe), a Mediterranean climate (Southern Europe), or a warm summer continental or hemiboreal climate (Northern Balkans and Central Europe). 

The EU's population is highly urbanised, with some 75% of inhabitants (and growing, projected to be 90% in seven member states by 2020) living in urban areas. Cities are largely spread out across the EU, although with a large grouping in and around the Benelux. An increasing percentage of this is due to low density urban sprawl which is extending into natural areas. In some cases, this urban growth has been due to the influx of EU funds into a region. 

Member states

Through successive enlargements, the European Union has grown from the six founding states—Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands—to the current . Countries accede to the union by becoming party to the founding treaties, thereby subjecting themselves to the privileges and obligations of EU membership. This entails a partial delegation of sovereignty to the institutions in return for representation within those institutions, a practice often referred to as "pooling of sovereignty".  

To become a member, a country must meet the Copenhagen criteria, defined at the 1993 meeting of the European Council in Copenhagen. These require a stable democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law. Evaluation of a country's fulfilment of the criteria is the responsibility of the European Council.  No member state has yet left the Union, although Greenland (an autonomous province of Denmark) withdrew in 1985.  The Lisbon Treaty now contains a clause under Article 50, providing for a member to leave the EU.  On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted by referendum to leave the EU. However, it remains a member until it officially exits, and has not yet begun formal withdrawal procedures.

There are six countries that are recognized as candidates for membership: Albania, Iceland, Macedonia,Referred to by the EU as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey, though Iceland suspended negotiations in 2013.  Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are officially recognised as potential candidates,  with Bosnia and Herzegovina having submitted a membership application.

The four countries forming the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) are not EU members, but have partly committed to the EU's economy and regulations: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, which are a part of the single market through the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, which has similar ties through bilateral treaties.  The relationships of the European microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican include the use of the euro and other areas of co-operation.  The following  sovereign states (of which the map only shows territories situated in and around Europe) constitute the European Union: 

File:Member States of the European Union (polar stereographic projection) EN.svg|390px|right|Map showing the member states of the European Union (clickable)
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poly 260 29 259 38 252 37 252 42 248 41 244 54 238 64 238 72 235 77 237 83 226 83 223 100 227 106 230 111 227 115 229 121 223 127 220 141 229 160 227 163 231 173 238 171 238 168 242 164 250 164 254 135 261 130 262 117 252 115 257 93 270 83 271 66 279 59 273 39 Sweden
poly 312 142 307 131 311 123 294 123 279 132 280 142 290 137 295 138 304 141 Estonia
poly 310 164 319 155 318 148 313 142 295 140 298 153 288 149 282 142 277 161 295 158 Latvia
poly 288 180 295 184 301 184 309 178 307 170 312 168 308 162 294 157 279 161 279 174 289 174 Lithuania
poly 300 198 294 182 290 180 270 183 265 184 264 179 250 182 248 186 238 190 238 197 234 199 239 203 241 223 249 225 251 229 255 226 261 230 265 232 268 235 270 237 273 235 276 240 281 237 283 237 289 236 296 242 297 239 297 234 301 223 305 222 304 217 301 214 296 201 Poland
poly 254 250 257 245 261 244 269 236 272 235 276 240 279 238 289 235 297 243 274 250 269 253 269 257 259 254 Slovakia
poly 299 251 291 245 270 252 269 257 258 252 249 268 254 271 260 279 268 278 275 274 290 272 294 258 Hungary
poly 355 291 354 280 361 274 355 269 349 272 346 270 343 259 332 248 330 243 328 242 324 247 314 250 312 248 301 250 294 255 292 265 288 271 282 274 288 281 293 284 293 288 296 290 302 287 301 291 308 294 308 297 317 297 322 297 329 295 339 287 347 288 Romania
poly 309 327 312 322 309 318 305 316 305 310 308 305 302 298 304 294 309 295 310 298 328 297 340 287 354 291 350 297 352 301 348 304 355 309 348 314 347 311 340 316 339 317 339 321 329 324 323 321 316 325 Bulgaria
poly 308 383 305 376 306 374 293 368 294 359 289 351 289 344 294 339 295 333 301 332 304 328 310 326 317 326 322 322 329 325 340 321 340 316 342 319 340 328 328 329 320 331 325 335 339 340 336 342 348 344 350 348 347 358 344 353 348 352 349 348 343 347 345 344 334 341 335 338 328 335 317 341 313 337 311 342 320 350 332 359 339 365 358 359 340 377 331 380 335 376 337 378 342 373 340 370 345 372 353 362 337 366 328 363 327 367 320 367 326 372 319 374 320 382 334 393 355 393 372 372 372 378 368 383 368 377 364 384 365 390 361 387 355 396 340 400 339 395 329 397 329 393 332 392 320 380 314 384 311 378 Greece
poly 419 384 415 381 421 378 421 373 428 371 435 365 430 374 434 376 424 383 Cyprus
poly 236 248 224 238 221 231 225 227 236 221 240 220 249 225 254 226 260 231 266 230 267 236 261 243 249 245 244 243 Czech Republic
poly 198 263 201 257 204 260 207 258 213 260 224 255 233 248 238 248 241 244 245 244 248 246 255 246 253 250 256 254 250 265 249 268 238 272 229 271 220 268 218 263 210 264 208 266 Austria
poly 249 267 253 273 242 279 244 284 236 282 230 281 227 277 229 271 238 272 Slovenia
poly 179 298 180 293 174 292 176 287 173 283 178 282 178 278 176 275 181 274 185 273 189 269 189 273 195 273 197 269 199 272 204 269 207 267 210 265 218 263 220 269 230 271 226 281 219 283 222 289 219 290 220 297 231 304 236 319 247 323 253 325 250 327 274 341 273 349 269 341 260 341 257 348 262 355 261 358 257 360 257 364 251 371 248 369 244 377 244 378 244 386 237 386 237 383 230 381 222 375 219 376 219 370 226 368 238 370 245 367 250 365 253 358 248 346 246 347 241 342 241 341 237 340 234 336 230 332 224 331 184 357 181 355 183 343 182 333 185 333 190 329 193 330 196 339 194 340 193 352 224 331 211 317 209 317 203 309 204 308 202 298 190 292 184 297 Italy
rect 224 394 251 405 Malta
poly 14 333 21 334 24 337 27 339 29 333 36 329 33 325 40 319 39 311 43 312 49 298 57 295 54 292 55 289 43 284 42 281 39 280 36 291 36 292 19 313 24 314 20 317 23 318 19 324 19 327 Portugal
poly 41 358 38 355 35 355 37 345 32 338 28 338 29 333 37 329 33 326 39 319 39 311 42 312 49 300 56 295 55 292 54 290 43 283 39 280 42 270 39 269 45 266 50 268 51 264 58 266 69 274 71 272 80 279 89 280 95 283 99 287 102 287 114 299 119 301 120 298 124 301 124 304 127 305 135 308 140 309 140 314 145 339 140 337 133 343 126 339 116 349 113 342 120 345 128 337 132 335 136 338 143 335 139 312 136 316 131 317 128 317 114 320 116 322 104 331 100 338 106 345 98 346 92 353 92 356 85 354 76 361 73 357 71 361 66 357 53 354 53 357 46 355 Spain
poly 100 286 111 297 118 300 119 298 126 302 128 302 128 305 139 307 140 301 144 298 152 296 155 300 157 298 165 304 169 305 189 328 195 318 195 306 192 312 188 311 187 327 170 305 178 298 180 294 173 292 176 288 174 284 179 281 176 276 179 272 175 266 170 267 175 262 180 258 178 255 182 256 186 244 190 240 178 234 173 232 169 227 169 225 165 225 162 220 157 216 155 212 151 212 147 218 142 222 137 221 137 224 133 223 125 220 121 218 124 225 121 230 113 227 111 223 107 224 101 223 97 223 97 232 109 241 111 251 115 258 107 284 France
poly 202 178 209 178 211 181 218 182 216 185 218 187 231 181 235 184 231 187 238 189 238 197 235 201 238 203 240 222 236 220 234 224 223 228 221 230 224 238 232 247 224 255 217 258 211 259 207 257 203 261 199 256 189 255 183 256 185 244 190 241 181 235 178 224 181 214 180 207 185 201 190 195 192 187 197 187 199 189 202 186 Germany
poly 177 225 174 229 172 235 180 237 180 229 Luxembourg
poly 155 210 157 220 166 225 175 232 173 226 178 225 177 215 171 210 164 212 160 209 Belgium
poly 191 188 178 189 162 209 167 209 171 207 170 210 179 215 180 207 188 204 184 200 188 198 Netherlands
poly 201 177 209 177 222 181 228 176 227 159 219 170 221 177 216 175 214 163 218 158 215 143 202 157 Denmark
poly 96 205 102 206 108 204 111 207 114 204 120 205 123 208 134 209 137 208 141 210 150 205 146 204 154 197 156 191 151 188 145 188 149 183 142 163 142 156 139 149 134 147 141 145 149 132 136 130 144 123 157 113 163 103 157 107 158 113 147 121 143 117 140 119 133 119 124 130 123 124 128 118 122 118 115 129 123 124 121 132 115 149 105 146 105 149 100 156 103 157 109 164 118 160 113 150 118 145 119 152 124 150 119 156 124 159 132 158 128 164 127 173 118 173 114 181 119 179 117 183 113 187 107 187 108 190 113 192 118 196 123 197 118 198 113 197 109 199 United Kingdom
poly 102 181 92 179 82 181 79 179 75 173 78 168 89 162 84 159 89 151 98 154 100 153 97 150 104 146 109 147 100 156 108 166 106 174 103 177 Ireland
desc bottom-left

Environment

In 1957, when the EEC was founded, it had no environmental policy.  Over the past 50 years, an increasingly dense network of legislation has been created, extending to all areas of environmental protection, including air pollution, water quality, waste management, nature conservation, and the control of chemicals, industrial hazards and biotechnology.  According to the Institute for European Environmental Policy, environmental law comprises over 500 Directives, Regulations and Decisions, making environmental policy a core area of European politics. 

European policy-makers originally increased the EU's capacity to act on environmental issues by defining it as a trade problem. 
Trade barriers and competitive distortions in the Common Market could emerge due to the different environmental standards in each member state.  In subsequent years, the environment became a formal policy area, with its own policy actors, principles and procedures. The legal basis for EU environmental policy was established with the introduction of the Single European Act in 1987.

Initially, EU environmental policy focused on Europe. More recently, the EU has demonstrated leadership in global environmental governance, e.g. the role of the EU in securing the ratification and coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol despite opposition from the United States. This international dimension is reflected in the EU's Sixth Environmental Action Programme,  which recognises that its objectives can only be achieved if key international agreements are actively supported and properly implemented both at EU level and worldwide. The Lisbon Treaty further strengthened the leadership ambitions.  EU law has played a significant role in improving habitat and species protection in Europe, as well as contributing to improvements in air and water quality and waste management.

Mitigating climate change is one of the top priorities of EU environmental policy. In 2007, member states agreed that, in future, 20% of the energy used across the EU must be renewable, and carbon dioxide emissions have to be lower in 2020 by at least 20% compared to 1990 levels.   The EU has adopted an emissions trading system to incorporate carbon emissions into the economy.  The European Green Capital is an annual award given to cities that focuses on the environment, energy efficiency and quality of life in urban areas to create smart city.

Politics

The European Union operates according to the principles of conferral (which says that it should act only within the limits of the competences conferred on it by the treaties) and of subsidiarity (which says that it should act only where an objective cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states acting alone). Laws made by the EU institutions are passed in a variety of forms. Generally speaking, they can be classified into two groups: those which come into force without the necessity for national implementation measures (regulations) and those which specifically require national implementation measures (directives). 

Constitutional nature

The classification of the EU in terms of international or constitutional law has been much debated. It began life as an international organisation and gradually developed into a confederation of states. However, since the mid-1960s it has also added several of the key attributes of a federation, such as the direct effect of the law of the general level of government upon the individual  and majority voting in the decision-making process of the general level of government,  without becoming a federation per se. Scholars thus today see it as an intermediate form lying between a confederation and a federation, being an instance of neither political structure.For example, David Marquand says it is ‘less than a federation but more than a confederation’; Brigid Laffan and Kimmo Kiljunen both see it residing ‘between a confederation and a federation’; Thomas Hueglin and Alan Fenna locate it ‘somewhere between federation and confederation’; and Kalypso Nicolaidis argues ‘it is more than a confederation of sovereign states; ... (however, it) should not become a federal state’. 
Michael Burgess enlarges: the EU 'is not a federation but it is also more than a confederation understood in the classical sense. It exists, then, in a kind of conceptual limbo, a twilight zone ... which has no name'. 
Paul Magnette illuminates the nature of the perceived 'in-betweenness': 'Since the seventeenth century, legal theorists have repeated that only two forms of union between states are possible: either the confederation, born of an international treaty concluded between sovereign states, where all decisions are unanimously adopted by state representatives; or the federal state, established by a constitution, where the law voted on by a bicameral parliament applies directly to the citizens. Tertium non datur. There is no third way ... In these, classic, political terms, the European Union is, strictly speaking, inconceivable'. 
Burgess, Michael (2000) Federalism and European Union: The Building of Europe 1950-2000, Routledge, London, pp. 41-2. Hueglin, Thomas and Fenna, Alan (2006) Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Inquiry, Broadview, Peterborough, p. 13. Kiljunen, Kimmo (2004) The European Constitution in the Making, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, p. 22. Laffan, Brigid (2002) The Future of Europe Debate, Institute of European Affairs, Dublin, p. 10. Magnette, Paul (2005) What Is the European Union? Nature and Prospects, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 4-5, 190. Marquand, David (2006) ‘Federalism and the British: Anatomy of a Neurosis’, in Political Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 2, p. 175. Nicolaidis, Kalypso (2004) ‘We, the Peoples of Europe ...’, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 6, pp. 101-2. For this reason, the organisation is termed sui generis (incomparable, one of a kind),  although some argue that this designation is no longer valid. 

The organisation has traditionally used the terms "Community" and later "Union" to describe itself. The difficulties of classification involve the difference between national law (where the subjects of the law include natural persons and corporations) and international law (where the subjects include sovereign states and international organizations). They can also be seen in the light of differing European and American constitutional traditions. 
Especially in terms of the European tradition, the term federation is equated with a sovereign federal state in international law; so the EU cannot be called a federation — at least, not without qualification. It is, however, described as being based on a federal model or federal in nature; and so it may be appropriate to consider it a federal union of states, a conceptual structure lying between the confederation of states and the federal state.For the derivation of this concept, see the Introduction of the entry on Federalism. 
Law, John (2013) [http://www.on-federalism.eu/attachments/169_download.pdf "How Can We Define Federalism?"]. Perspectives on Federalism, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. E104. The German Constitutional Court refers to the EU as a Staatenverbund, an intermediate structure between the Staatenbund (confederation of states) and the Bundesstaat (federal state), consistent with this concept. 
This may be a long-lived political form. Professor Andrew Moravcsik claims that the EU is unlikely to develop further into a federal state, but instead has reached maturity as a constitutional system. 

Governance

The European Union has seven institutions: the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the European Court of Auditors. Competence in scrutinising and amending legislation is shared between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, while executive tasks are performed by the European Commission and in a limited capacity by the European Council (not to be confused with the aforementioned Council of the European Union). The monetary policy of the eurozone is determined by the European Central Bank. The interpretation and the application of EU law and the treaties are ensured by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The EU budget is scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors. There are also a number of ancillary bodies which advise the EU or operate in a specific area.

European Council

The European Council gives political direction to the EU. It convenes at least four times a year and comprises the President of the European Council (currently Donald Tusk), the President of the European Commission and one representative per member state (either its head of state or head of government). The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (currently Federica Mogherini) also takes part in its meetings. It has been described by some as the Union's "supreme political authority".  It is actively involved in the negotiation of treaty changes and defines the EU's policy agenda and strategies.

The European Council uses its leadership role to sort out disputes between member states and the institutions, and to resolve political crises and disagreements over controversial issues and policies. It acts externally as a "collective head of state" and ratifies important documents (for example, international agreements and treaties).[https://books.google.com/books?idaMsWxEnaqrUC&pg
PA146 With US or against US?: European trends in American perspective] Parsons, Jabko. European Union Studies Association, p.146:Fourth, the European Council acts a "collective head of state" for the EU.

Tasks for the President of the European Council are ensuring the external representation of the EU,  driving consensus and resolving divergences among member states, both during meetings of the European Council and over the periods between them.

The European Council should not be mistaken for the Council of Europe, an international organisation independent of the EU based in Strasbourg.

Council of the European Union

The Council of the European Union (also called the "Council"  and the "Council of Ministers", its former title)  forms one half of the EU's legislature. It consists of a government minister from each member state and meets in different compositions depending on the policy area being addressed. Notwithstanding its different configurations, it is considered to be one single body.  In addition to its legislative functions, the Council also exercises executive functions in relations to the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

European Parliament

The European Parliament forms the other half of the EU's legislature.
The 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens every five years on the basis of proportional representation. Although MEPs are elected on a national basis, they sit according to political groups rather than their nationality. Each country has a set number of seats and is divided into sub-national constituencies where this does not affect the proportional nature of the voting system. 

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union pass legislation jointly in nearly all areas under the ordinary legislative procedure. This also applies to the EU budget. The European Commission is accountable to Parliament, requiring its approval to take office, having to report back to it and subject to motions of censure from it. The President of the European Parliament (currently Martin Schulz) carries out the role of speaker in Parliament and represents it externally. The President and Vice-Presidents are elected by MEPs every two and a half years. 

European Commission

The European Commission acts as the EU's executive arm and is responsible for initiating legislation and the day-to-day running of the EU. The Commission is also seen as the motor of European integration. It operates as a cabinet government, with 28 Commissioners for different areas of policy, one from each member state, though Commissioners are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state.

One of the 28 is the President of the European Commission (currently Jean-Claude Juncker) appointed by the European Council. After the President, the most prominent Commissioner is the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who is ex-officio a Vice-President of the Commission and is also chosen by the European Council.  The other 26 Commissioners are subsequently appointed by the Council of the European Union in agreement with the nominated President. The 28 Commissioners as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament.

Budget

The EU had an agreed budget of €120.7 billion for the year 2007 and €864.3 billion for the period 2007–2013,  representing 1.10% and 1.05% of the EU-27's GNI forecast for the respective periods. By comparison, the United Kingdom's expenditure for 2004 was estimated to be €759 billion, and France was estimated to have spent €801 billion. In 1960, the budget of the then European Economic Community was 0.03% of GDP. 

In the 2010 budget of €141.5 billion, the largest single expenditure item is "cohesion & competitiveness" with around 45% of the total budget.  Next comes "agriculture" with approximately 31% of the total. "Rural development, environment and fisheries" takes up around 11%. "Administration" accounts for around 6%. The "EU as a global partner" and "citizenship, freedom, security and justice" bring up the rear with approximately 6% and 1% respectively.

The Court of Auditors is legally obliged to provide the Parliament and the Council with "a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions".  The Court also gives opinions and proposals on financial legislation and anti-fraud actions.  The Parliament uses this to decide whether to approve the Commission's handling of the budget.

The European Court of Auditors has signed off the European Union accounts every year since 2007 and, while making it clear that the European Commission has more work to do, has highlighted that most of the errors take place at national level.   In their report on 2009 the auditors found that five areas of Union expenditure, agriculture and the cohesion fund, were materially affected by error.  The European Commission estimated in 2009 that the financial effect of irregularities was €1,863 million. 

Competences

EU member states retain all powers not explicitly handed to the European Union. In some areas the EU enjoys exclusive competence. These are areas in which member states have renounced any capacity to enact legislation. In other areas the EU and its member states share the competence to legislate. While both can legislate, member states can only legislate to the extent to which the EU has not. In other policy areas the EU can only co-ordinate, support and supplement member state action but cannot enact legislation with the aim of harmonising national laws. 

That a particular policy area falls into a certain category of competence is not necessarily indicative of what legislative procedure is used for enacting legislation within that policy area. Different legislative procedures are used within the same category of competence, and even with the same policy area.

The distribution of competences in various policy areas between Member States and the Union is divided in the following three categories:

Legal system

The EU is based on a series of treaties. These first established the European Community and the EU, and then made amendments to those founding treaties.  These are power-giving treaties which set broad policy goals and establish institutions with the necessary legal powers to implement those goals. These legal powers include the ability to enact legislationSee Article 288 (ex Article 249 TEC) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uriOJ:C:2010:083:0047:0200:EN:PDF eur-lex.europa.eu] which can directly affect all member states and their inhabitants.According to the principle of Direct Effect first invoked in the Court of Justice's decision in  See: Craig and de Búrca, ch. 5. The EU has legal personality, with the right to sign agreements and international treaties. 

Under the principle of supremacy, national courts are required to enforce the treaties that their member states have ratified, and thus the laws enacted under them, even if doing so requires them to ignore conflicting national law, and (within limits) even constitutional provisions.According to the principle of Supremacy as established by the ECJ in Case 6/64, Falminio Costa v. ENEL [1964] ECR 585. See Craig and de Búrca, ch. 7. See also: Factortame litigation: Factortame Ltd. v. Secretary of State for Transport (No. 2) [1991] 1 AC 603, Solange II (Re Wuensche Handelsgesellschaft, BVerfG decision of 22 October 1986 [1987] 3 CMLR 225,265) and Frontini v. Ministero delle Finanze [1974] 2 CMLR 372; Raoul George Nicolo [1990] 1 CMLR 173.

Courts of Justice

The judicial branch of the EU—formally called the Court of Justice of the European Union—consists of three courts: the Court of Justice, the General Court, and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal. Together they interpret and apply the treaties and the law of the EU. 

The Court of Justice primarily deals with cases taken by member states, the institutions, and cases referred to it by the courts of member states.  The General Court mainly deals with cases taken by individuals and companies directly before the EU's courts,  and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal adjudicates in disputes between the European Union and its civil service.  Decisions from the General Court can be appealed to the Court of Justice but only on a point of law. 

Fundamental rights

The treaties declare that the EU itself is "founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities ... in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail." 

In 2009 the Lisbon Treaty gave legal effect to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The charter is a codified catalogue of fundamental rights against which the EU's legal acts can be judged. It consolidates many rights which were previously recognised by the Court of Justice and derived from the "constitutional traditions common to the member states."  The Court of Justice has long recognised fundamental rights and has, on occasion, invalidated EU legislation based on its failure to adhere to those fundamental rights. 

Although signing the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a condition for EU membership,It is effectively treated as one of the Copenhagen criteria, [http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link
/Documents/AdoptedText/ta08/ERES1610.htm Assembly.coe.int.] It should be noted that this is a political and not a legal requirement for membership.  previously, the EU itself could not accede to the Convention as it is neither a stateThe European Convention on Human Rights was previously only open to members of the Council of Europe ([http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm Article 59.1 of the Convention]), and even now only states may become member of the Council of Europe ([http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/001.htm Article 4 of the Statute of the Council of Europe]). nor had the competence to accede.Opinion (2/92) of the European Court of Justice on "Accession by the Community to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61994V0002:FR:NOT 1996 E.C.R. I-1759] (in French), ruled that the European Community did not have the competence to accede to the ECHR. The Lisbon Treaty and Protocol 14 to the ECHR have changed this: the former binds the EU to accede to the Convention while the latter formally permits it.

Although, the EU is independent from Council of Europe, they share purpose and ideas especially on rule of law, human rights and democracy. Further European Convention on Human Rights and European Social Charter, the source of law of Charter of Fundamental Rights are created by Council of Europe. The EU also promoted human rights issues in the wider world. The EU opposes the death penalty and has proposed its worldwide abolition. Abolition of the death penalty is a condition for EU membership. 

Acts

The main legal acts of the EU come in three forms: regulations, directives, and decisions. Regulations become law in all member states the moment they come into force, without the requirement for any implementing measures,See: Case 34/73, Variola v. Amministrazione delle Finanze [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri
CELEX:61973J0034:EN:NOT [1973] ECR 981]. and automatically override conflicting domestic provisions. Directives require member states to achieve a certain result while leaving them discretion as to how to achieve the result. The details of how they are to be implemented are left to member states.To do otherwise would require the drafting of legislation which would have to cope with the frequently divergent legal systems and administrative systems of all of the now 28 member states. See Craig and de Búrca, p. 115 When the time limit for implementing directives passes, they may, under certain conditions, have direct effect in national law against member states.

Decisions offer an alternative to the two above modes of legislation. They are legal acts which only apply to specified individuals, companies or a particular member state. They are most often used in competition law, or on rulings on State Aid, but are also frequently used for procedural or administrative matters within the institutions. Regulations, directives, and decisions are of equal legal value and apply without any formal hierarchy. 

Area of freedom, security and justice

Since the creation of the EU in 1993, it has developed its competencies in the area of freedom, security and justice, initially at an intergovernmental level and later by supranationalism. To this end, agencies have been established that co-ordinate associated actions: Europol for co-operation of police forces,  Eurojust for co-operation between prosecutors,  and Frontex for co-operation between border control authorities.  The EU also operates the Schengen Information System which provides a common database for police and immigration authorities. This co-operation had to particularly be developed with the advent of open borders through the Schengen Agreement and the associated cross border crime.

Furthermore, the Union has legislated in areas such as extradition,  family law,  asylum law,  and criminal justice.  Prohibitions against sexual and nationality discrimination have a long standing in the treaties.See Articles 157 (ex Article 141) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uriOJ:C:2010:083:0013:0046:EN:PDF eur-lex.europa.eu] In more recent years, these have been supplemented by powers to legislate against discrimination based on race, religion, disability, age, and sexual orientation.See Article 2(7) of the Amsterdam Treaty on [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/dat/11997D/htm/11997D.html#0001010001 eur-lex.europa.eu]  By virtue of these powers, the EU has enacted legislation on sexual discrimination in the work-place, age discrimination, and racial discrimination.Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin (OJ L 180, 19 July 2000, p. 22–26); Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (OJ L 303, 2 December 2000, p. 16–22).

Foreign relations

Foreign policy co-operation between member states dates from the establishment of the Community in 1957, when member states negotiated as a bloc in international trade negotiations under the Common Commercial policy.  Steps for a more wide ranging co-ordination in foreign relations began in 1970 with the establishment of European Political Cooperation which created an informal consultation process between member states with the aim of forming common foreign policies. It was not, however, until 1987 when European Political Cooperation was introduced on a formal basis by the Single European Act. EPC was renamed as the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by the Maastricht Treaty. 

The aims of the CFSP are to promote both the EU's own interests and those of the international community as a whole, including the furtherance of international co-operation, respect for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.  The CFSP requires unanimity among the member states on the appropriate policy to follow on any particular issue. The unanimity and difficult issues treated under the CFSP sometimes lead to disagreements, such as those which occurred over the war in Iraq. 

The coordinator and representative of the CFSP within the EU is the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy who speaks on behalf of the EU in foreign policy and defence matters, and has the task of articulating the positions expressed by the member states on these fields of policy into a common alignment. The High Representative heads up the European External Action Service (EEAS), a unique EU department  that has been officially implemented and operational since 1 December 2010 on the occasion of the first anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon.  The EEAS will serve as a foreign ministry and diplomatic corps for the European Union. 

Besides the emerging international policy of the European Union, the international influence of the EU is also felt through enlargement. The perceived benefits of becoming a member of the EU act as an incentive for both political and economic reform in states wishing to fulfil the EU's accession criteria, and are considered an important factor contributing to the reform of European formerly Communist countries.  This influence on the internal affairs of other countries is generally referred to as "soft power", as opposed to military "hard power".

Military

The predecessors of the European Union were not devised as a military alliance because NATO was largely seen as appropriate and sufficient for defence purposes. 22 EU members are members of NATO  while the remaining member states follow policies of neutrality.  The Western European Union, a military alliance with a mutual defence clause, was disbanded in 2010 as its role had been transferred to the EU. 

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United Kingdom spent $61 billion on defence in 2014, placing it fifth in the world, while France spent $53 billion, the sixth largest.  Together, the UK and France account for approximately 40 per cent of EU's defence budget and 50 per cent of its military capacity.  Both are officially recognised nuclear weapon states holding permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council.

Following the Kosovo War in 1999, the European Council agreed that "the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and the readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises without prejudice to actions by NATO". To that end, a number of efforts were made to increase the EU's military capability, notably the Helsinki Headline Goal process. After much discussion, the most concrete result was the EU Battlegroups initiative, each of which is planned to be able to deploy quickly about 1500 personnel. 

EU forces have been deployed on peacekeeping missions from middle and northern Africa to the western Balkans and western Asia.  EU military operations are supported by a number of bodies, including the European Defence Agency, European Union Satellite Centre and the European Union Military Staff.  Frontex is an agency of the EU established to manage the cooperation between national border guards securing its external borders. It aims to detect and stop illegal immigration, human trafficking and terrorist infiltration. In December 2015 the European Commission presented its proposal for a new European Border and Coast Guard Agency having a stronger role and mandate along with national authorities for border management. In an EU consisting of 28 members, substantial security and defence co-operation is increasingly relying on collaboration among all member states. 

Humanitarian aid

The European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department, or "ECHO", provides humanitarian aid from the EU to developing countries. In 2012, its budget amounted to €874 million, 51% of the budget went to Africa and 20% to Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Pacific, and 20% to the Middle East and Mediterranean. 

Humanitarian aid is financed directly by the budget (70%) as part of the financial instruments for external action and also by the European Development Fund (30%).Mikaela Gavas 2010. [http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id
5078&titleeuropean-development-cooperation-financial-perspectives Financing European development cooperation: the Financial Perspectives 2014–2020.] London: Overseas Development Institute The EU's external action financing is divided into 'geographic' instruments and 'thematic' instruments. The 'geographic' instruments provide aid through the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI, €16.9 billion, 2007–2013), which must spend 95% of its budget on overseas development assistance (ODA), and from the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI), which contains some relevant programmes. The European Development Fund (EDF, €22.7 bn, 2008–2013) is made up of voluntary contributions by member states, but there is pressure to merge the EDF into the budget-financed instruments to encourage increased contributions to match the 0.7% target and allow the European Parliament greater oversight.

However, five countries have reached the 0.7% target: Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom.   In 2011, EU aid was 0.42% of the EU's GNI making it the world's most generous aid donor.  The previous Commissioner for Aid, Louis Michel, has called for aid to be delivered more rapidly, to greater effect, and on humanitarian principles. 

Economy

The five largest economies in the world according to the IMF by nominal GDP in 2014. 

The European Union has established a single market across the territory of all its members representing 508 million citizens. In 2014, the EU had a combined GDP of 18.640 trillion international dollars, a 20% share of global gross domestic product by purchasing power parity (PPP).  As a political entity the European Union is represented in the World Trade Organization (WTO). EU member states own the estimated largest net wealth in the world, equal to 30% of the $223 trillion global wealth.

19 member states have joined a monetary union known as the eurozone, which uses the Euro as a single currency. The currency union represents 338 million EU citizens. The euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar.   

Of the top 500 largest corporations in the world measured by revenue in 2010, 161 have their headquarters in the EU.  In 2016, unemployment in the EU stood at 8.9%  while inflation was at 2.2%, and the current account balance at −0.9% of GDP.

There is a significant variance for GDP (PPP) per capita within individual EU states. The difference between the richest and poorest regions (276 NUTS-2 regions of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) ranged, in 2014, from 30% of the EU28 average to 539%, or from €8,200 to €148,000 (about US$9,000 to US$162,000).

Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds are supporting the development of underdeveloped regions of the EU. Such regions are primarily located in the states of central and southern Europe.   Several funds provide emergency aid, support for candidate members to transform their country to conform to the EU's standard (Phare, ISPA, and SAPARD), and support to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS). TACIS has now become part of the worldwide EuropeAid programme. EU research and technological framework programmes sponsor research conducted by consortia from all EU members to work towards a single European Research Area. 

Internal market

Two of the original core objectives of the European Economic Community were the development of a common market, subsequently becoming a single market, and a customs union between its member states. The single market involves the free circulation of goods, capital, people, and services within the EU,  and the customs union involves the application of a common external tariff on all goods entering the market. Once goods have been admitted into the market they cannot be subjected to customs duties, discriminatory taxes or import quotas, as they travel internally. The non-EU member states of Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland participate in the single market but not in the customs union.  Half the trade in the EU is covered by legislation harmonised by the EU. 

Free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchases and buying of shares between countries.  Until the drive towards economic and monetary union the development of the capital provisions had been slow. Post-Maastricht there has been a rapidly developing corpus of ECJ judgements regarding this initially neglected freedom. The free movement of capital is unique insofar as it is granted equally to non-member states.

The free movement of persons means that EU citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and recognition of professional qualifications of other states. 

The free movement of services and of establishment allows self-employed persons to move between member states to provide services on a temporary or permanent basis. While services account for 60–70% of GDP, legislation in the area is not as developed as in other areas. This lacuna has been addressed by the recently passed Directive on services in the internal market which aims to liberalise the cross border provision of services.  According to the Treaty the provision of services is a residual freedom that only applies if no other freedom is being exercised.

Monetary union

The creation of a European single currency became an official objective of the European Economic Community in 1969. In 1992, having negotiated the structure and procedures of a currency union, the member states signed the Maastricht Treaty and were legally bound to fulfil the agreed-on rules including the convergence criteria if they wanted to join the monetary union. The states wanting to participate had first to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

In 1999 the currency union started, first as an accounting currency with eleven member states joining. In 2002, the currency was fully put into place, when euro notes and coins were issued and national currencies began to phase out in the eurozone, which by then consisted of 12 member states. The eurozone (constituted by the EU member states which have adopted the euro) has since grown to 19 countries. 

Since its launch the euro has become the second reserve currency in the world with a quarter of foreign exchanges reserves being in euro.  The euro, and the monetary policies of those who have adopted it in agreement with the EU, are under the control of the European Central Bank (ECB). 

The ECB is the central bank for the eurozone, and thus controls monetary policy in that area with an agenda to maintain price stability. It is at the centre of the European System of Central Banks, which comprehends all EU national central banks and is controlled by its General Council, consisting of the President of the ECB, who is appointed by the European Council, the Vice-President of the ECB, and the governors of the national central banks of all 28 EU member states. 

The European System of Financial Supervision is an institutional architecture of the EU's framework of financial supervision composed by three authorities: the European Banking Authority, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority. To complement this framework, there is also a European Systemic Risk Board under the responsibility of the ECB. The aim of this financial control system is to ensure the economic stability of the EU. 

To prevent the joining states from getting into financial trouble or crisis after entering the monetary union, they were obliged in the Maastricht treaty to fulfil important financial obligations and procedures, especially to show budgetary discipline and a high degree of sustainable economic convergence, as well as to avoid excessive government deficits and limit the government debt to a sustainable level.

Energy

In 2006, the EU-27 had a gross inland energy consumption of 1,825 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe). Around 46% of the energy consumed was produced within the member states while 54% was imported. In these statistics, nuclear energy is treated as primary energy produced in the EU, regardless of the source of the uranium, of which less than 3% is produced in the EU.  Nuclear energy and renewable energy are treated differently from oil, gas , and coal in this respect.

The EU has had legislative power in the area of energy policy for most of its existence; this has its roots in the original European Coal and Steel Community. The introduction of a mandatory and comprehensive European energy policy was approved at the meeting of the European Council in October 2005, and the first draft policy was published in January 2007. 

The EU has five key points in its energy policy: increase competition in the internal market, encourage investment and boost interconnections between electricity grids; diversify energy resources with better systems to respond to a crisis; establish a new treaty framework for energy co-operation with Russia while improving relations with energy-rich states in Central Asia  and North Africa; use existing energy supplies more efficiently while increasing renewable energy commercialisation; and finally increase funding for new energy technologies.

The EU imports 82% of its oil, 57% of its natural gas  and 97.48% of its uranium demands. Because of Europe's dependence on Russian energy the EU is attempting to diversify its energy supply. 

Infrastructure

The EU is working to improve cross-border infrastructure within the EU, for example through the Trans-European Networks (TEN). Projects under TEN include the Channel Tunnel, LGV Est, the Fréjus Rail Tunnel, the Öresund Bridge, the Brenner Base Tunnel and the Strait of Messina Bridge. In 2010 the estimated network covers: 75200 km of roads; 78000 km of railways; 330 airports; 270 maritime harbours; and 210 internal harbours.  

Rail transport in Europe is being synchronised with the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), an initiative to greatly enhance safety, increase efficiency of trains and enhance cross-border interoperability of rail transport in Europe by replacing signalling equipment with digitized mostly wireless versions and by creating a single Europe-wide standard for train control and command systems.

The developing European transport policies will increase the pressure on the environment in many regions by the increased transport network. In the pre-2004 EU members, the major problem in transport deals with congestion and pollution. After the recent enlargement, the new states that joined since 2004 added the problem of solving accessibility to the transport agenda.  The Polish road network was upgraded such as the A4 autostrada.  

The Galileo positioning system is another EU infrastructure project. Galileo is a proposed Satellite navigation system, to be built by the EU and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Galileo project was launched partly to reduce the EU's dependency on the US-operated Global Positioning System, but also to give more complete global coverage and allow for greater accuracy, given the aged nature of the GPS system. 

Agriculture

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the long lasting policies of the European Community.  The policy has the objectives of increasing agricultural production, providing certainty in food supplies, ensuring a high quality of life for farmers, stabilising markets, and ensuring reasonable prices for consumers.Article 39 (ex Article 33) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri
OJ:C:2010:083:0047:0200:EN:PDF eur-lex.europa.eu] It was, until recently, operated by a system of subsidies and market intervention. Until the 1990s, the policy accounted for over 60% of the then European Community's annual budget, and  accounts for around 34%. 

The policy's price controls and market interventions led to considerable overproduction. These were intervention stores of products bought up by the Community to maintain minimum price levels. To dispose of surplus stores, they were often sold on the world market at prices considerably below Community guaranteed prices, or farmers were offered subsidies (amounting to the difference between the Community and world prices) to export their products outside the Community. This system has been criticised for under-cutting farmers outside Europe, especially those in the developing world.  Supporters of CAP argue that the economic support which it gives to farmers provides them with a reasonable standard of living.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the CAP has been subject to a series of reforms. Initially, these reforms included the introduction of set-aside in 1988, where a proportion of farm land was deliberately withdrawn from production, milk quotas and, more recently, the 'de-coupling' (or disassociation) of the money farmers receive from the EU and the amount they produce (by the Fischler reforms in 2004). Agriculture expenditure will move away from subsidy payments linked to specific produce, toward direct payments based on farm size. This is intended to allow the market to dictate production levels. One of these reforms entailed the abolition of the EU's sugar regime, which previously divided the sugar market between member states and certain African-Caribbean nations with a privileged relationship with the EU. 

Competition

The EU operates a competition policy intended to ensure undistorted competition within the single market.Article 3(1)(g) of the Treaty of Rome The Commission as the competition regulator for the single market is responsible for antitrust issues, approving mergers, breaking up cartels, working for economic liberalisation and preventing state aid. 

The Competition Commissioner, currently Margrethe Vestager, is one of the most powerful positions in the Commission, notable for the ability to affect the commercial interests of trans-national corporations.  For example, in 2001 the Commission for the first time prevented a merger between two companies based in the United States (GE and Honeywell) which had already been approved by their national authority.  Another high-profile case against Microsoft, resulted in the Commission fining Microsoft over €777 million following nine years of legal action. 

Demographics

As of 1 January 2016, the population of the European Union is about 510.1 million people. In 2013, 5,075,000 live births were registered and 4,999,200 deaths. The net migration to the EU was +653,100. In 2010, 47.3 million people who lived in the EU were born outside their resident country. This corresponds to 9.4% of the total EU population. Of these, 31.4 million (6.3%) were born outside the EU and 16.0 million (3.2%) were born in another EU member state. The largest absolute numbers of people born outside the EU were in Germany (6.4 million), France (5.1 million), the United Kingdom (4.7 million), Spain (4.1 million), Italy (3.2 million), and the Netherlands (1.4 million). 

Urbanisation

The EU contains 16 cities with populations of over one million. Besides many large cities, the EU also includes several densely populated regions that have no single core but have emerged from the connection of several cities and now encompass large metropolitan areas. The largest are Rhine-Ruhr having approximately 11.5 million inhabitants (Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf et al.), Randstad approx. 7 million (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht et al.), Frankfurt Rhine-Main approx. 5.8 million (Frankfurt, Wiesbaden et al.), the Flemish Diamond approx. 5.5 million (urban area in between Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven and Ghent), Upper Silesia approx. 5.3 million (Katowice, Ostrava) and Øresund approx. 3.7 million (Copenhagen, Malmö). 

Languages

Among the many languages and dialects used in the EU, it has 24 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, and Swedish.   Important documents, such as legislation, are translated into every official language.

The European Parliament provides translation into all languages for documents and its plenary sessions.  Some institutions use only a handful of languages as internal working languages.  Catalan, Galician, Basque, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are not official languages of the EU but have semi-official status in that official translations of the treaties are made into them and citizens of the EU have the right to correspond with the institutions using them.

Language policy is the responsibility of member states, but EU institutions promote the learning of other languages.See Articles 165 and 166 (ex Articles 149 and 150) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri
OJ:C:2010:083:0047:0200:EN:PDF eur-lex.europa.eu]  English is the most widely spoken language in the EU, being spoken by 51% of the EU population when counting both native and non-native speakers.  German is the most widely spoken mother tongue, being spoken by 16% of the EU population. 56% of EU citizens are able to engage in a conversation in a language other than their mother tongue.  Most official languages of the EU belong to the Indo-European language family, except Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian, which belong to the Uralic language family, and Maltese, which is a Semitic language. Most EU official languages are written in the Latin alphabet except Bulgarian, which is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and Greek, which is written in the Greek alphabet.  These are the three official scripts of the European Union. 

Besides the 24 official languages, there are about 150 regional and minority languages, spoken by up to 50 million people. Although EU programmes can support regional and minority languages, the protection of linguistic rights is a matter for the individual member states. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ratified by most EU states provides general guidelines that states can follow to protect their linguistic heritage.

The European Day of Languages is held annually on 26 September and is aimed at encouraging language learning across Europe.

Religion

The EU is a secular body with no formal connection to any religion. The Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union recognises the "status under national law of churches and religious associations" as well as that of "philosophical and non-confessional organisations".

The preamble to the Treaty on European Union mentions the "cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe".  Discussion over the draft texts of the European Constitution and later the Treaty of Lisbon included proposals to mention Christianity or God, or both, in the preamble of the text, but the idea faced opposition and was dropped. 

Christians in the EU are divided among members of Catholicism (both Roman and Eastern Rite), numerous Protestant denominations, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 2009, the EU had an estimated Muslim population of 13 million,  and an estimated Jewish population of over a million.  The other world religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism are also represented in the EU population.

According to new polls about religiosity in the European Union in 2012 by Eurobarometer, Christianity is the largest religion in the European Union, accounting for 72% of the EU population. Catholics are the largest Christian group, accounting for 48% of the EU population, while Protestants make up 12%, Eastern Orthodox make up 8% and other Christians make up 4%. 

Eurostat's Eurobarometer opinion polls showed in 2005 that 52% of EU citizens believed in a God, 27% in "some sort of spirit or life force", and 18% had no form of belief.  Many countries have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years.  The countries where the fewest people reported a religious belief were Estonia (16%) and the Czech Republic (19%). The most religious countries were Malta (95%, predominantly Roman Catholic) as well as Cyprus and Romania (both predominantly Orthodox) each with about 90% of citizens professing a belief in God. Across the EU, belief was higher among women, older people, those with religious upbringing, those who left school at 15 or 16 and those "positioning themselves on the right of the political scale".

Education and science

Basic education is an area where the EU's role is limited to supporting national governments. In higher education, the policy was developed in the 1980s in programmes supporting exchanges and mobility. The most visible of these has been the Erasmus Programme, a university exchange programme which began in 1987. In its first 20 years, it has supported international exchange opportunities for well over 1.5 million university and college students and has become a symbol of European student life. 

There are now similar programmes for school pupils and teachers, for trainees in vocational education and training, and for adult learners in the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013. These programmes are designed to encourage a wider knowledge of other countries and to spread good practices in the education and training fields across the EU.   Through its support of the Bologna Process, the EU is supporting comparable standards and compatible degrees across Europe.

Scientific development is facilitated through the EU's Framework Programmes, the first of which started in 1984. The aims of EU policy in this area are to co-ordinate and stimulate research. The independent European Research Council allocates EU funds to European or national research projects.  EU research and technological framework programmes deal in a number of areas, for example energy where the aim is to develop a diverse mix of renewable energy to help the environment and to reduce dependence on imported fuels. 

Health care

Although the EU has no major competences in the field of health care, Article 35 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms that "A high level of human health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities". The European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Consumers seeks to align national laws on the protection of people's health, on the consumers' rights, on the safety of food and other products.   

Health care in the EU is provided through a wide range of different systems run at the national level. The systems are primarily publicly funded through taxation (universal health care). Private funding for health care may represent personal contributions towards meeting the non-taxpayer refunded portion of health care or may reflect totally private (non-subsidised) health care either paid out of pocket or met by some form of personal or employer funded insurance.

All EU and many other European countries offer their citizens a free European Health Insurance Card which, on a reciprocal basis, provides insurance for emergency medical treatment insurance when visiting other participating European countries.  A directive on cross-border healthcare aims at promoting co-operation on health care between member states and facilitating access to safe and high-quality cross-border healthcare for European patients.   

Culture 

Cultural co-operation between member states has been a concern of the EU since its inclusion as a community competency in the Maastricht Treaty.  Actions taken in the cultural area by the EU include the Culture 2000 7-year programme, the European Cultural Month event,  the MEDIA Programme,  and orchestras such as the European Union Youth Orchestra.

The European Capital of Culture programme selects one or more cities in every year to assist the cultural development of that city.  53 EU cities have been part of this initiative up to 2016.

Sport

Sport is mainly the responsibility of the member states or other international organisations, rather than of the EU. However, there are some EU policies that have affected sport, such as the free movement of workers, which was at the core of the Bosman ruling that prohibited national football leagues from imposing quotas on foreign players with European citizenship.  The Treaty of Lisbon requires any application of economic rules to take into account the specific nature of sport and its structures based on voluntary activity.  This followed lobbying by governing organisations such as the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, due to objections over the application of free market principles to sport, which led to an increasing gap between rich and poor clubs.  The EU does fund a programme for Israeli, Jordanian, Irish, and British football coaches, as part of the Football 4 Peace project. 

Association Football is the most popular sport in almost all EU countries. Club teams from the EU are the highest paid in the world. Other team sports like rugby, ice hockey, basketball, cricket, handball, volleyball and water polo are also popular in some member states.

Symbols

The flag of the Union consists of a circle of 12 golden stars on a blue background. The blue represents the West, while the number and position of the stars represent completeness and unity, respectively.  Originally designed in 1955 for the Council of Europe, the flag was adopted by the European Communities, the predecessors of the present Union, in 1986.

United in Diversity was adopted as the motto of the Union in the year 2000, having been selected from proposals submitted by school pupils. Since 1985, the flag day of the Union has been Europe Day, on 9 May (the date of the 1950 Schuman declaration). The anthem of the Union is an instrumental version of the prelude to the Ode to Joy, the 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony. The anthem was adopted by European Community leaders in 1985 and has since been played on official occasions. 

Besides naming the continent, the Greek mythological figure of Europa has frequently been employed as a personification of Europe. Known from the myth in which Zeus seduces her in the guise of a white bull, Europa has also been referred to in relation to the present Union. Statues of Europa and the bull decorate several of the Union's institutions and a portrait of her is seen on the 2013 series of Euro banknotes. The bull is, for its part, depicted on all residence permit cards.

Charles the Great, also known as Charlemagne () and later recognized as Pater Europae ("Father of Europe"),      has a symbolic relevance to Europe. The Commission has named one of its central buildings in Brussels after Charlemagne and the city of Aachen has since 1949 awarded the Charlemagne Prize to champions of European unification.  Since 2008, the organisers of this prize, in conjunction with the European Parliament, have awarded the Charlemagne Youth Prize in recognition of similar efforts by young people. 

Media 

Media freedom is a fundamental right that applies to all member states of the European Union and its citizens, as defined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.  Within the EU enlargement process, guaranteeing media freedom is named a "key indicator of a country's readiness to become part of the EU".
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