Last week MrB was struggling with a crossword clue and asked me if I could name the twenty-eight countries in the European Union and their capitals. There was a long pause . . . . . but I managed to give him his crossword answer.
There was then another pause and I realised I wasn’t going to get much further, I was struggling to confidently name the countries let alone their capitals! So today I decided to rectify that but before you click on continue reading, how many can you name off the top of your head?
- Austria – Vienna
- Belgium – Brussels
- Bulgaria – Sofia
- Croatia – Zagreb
- Cyprus – Nicosia
- The Czech Republic – Prague
- Denmark – Copenhagen
- Estonia – Tallinn
- Finland – Helsinki
- France – Paris
- Germany – Berlin
- Greece – Athens
- Hungary – Budapest
- Ireland – Dublin
- Italy – Rome
- Latvia – Riga
- Lithuania – Vilnius
- Luxembourg – Luxembourg
- Malta – Valletta
- The Netherlands – Amsterdam
- Poland – Warsaw
- Portugal – Lisbon
- Romania – Bucharest
- Slovakia – Bratislava
- Slovenia – Ljubljana
- Spain – Madrid
- Sweden – Stockholm
- United Kingdom – London
I have this vain hope that by writing them all down I might remember them! I am aware it may take me a while and so have decided not to list also the twenty-three European countries which are not in the EU. Their capitals will have to wait for another day!
However thinking about the others has made me curious, especially with BREXIT looming in our future. How many of the twenty-three are in the Eurozone, how many have signed up to the Schengen agreement, are in the European Economic Area (EEA) and most intriguing how many are physically on the European Continent? And then what about those within the EU which are not part of some of these agreements. Confused? Rest assured you won’t be alone! Take a peek at this short CGP Grey video and all will be explained. Or maybe not given the many EU asterisks!
The life of B 
Comments are closed.