One of the most divisive subjects on the board. Depending on who you ask, the EU is either:
As one can imagine, these two opposing views lead to considerable…“debate” (by the AH.com definition, see also Gun Control “debates” and Universal Healthcare “debates”), as well as division within the two sides for the reason to support/oppose the EU. Possibly the only thing that can unite the two sides against another viewpoint is when someone (usually a non-European) goes off on a bizarre right-wing fantasy tangent about how Teh Evol Muslims will overthrow the EU and turn it into the Inevitablid Caliphate any day now.
Because of British naming conventions, most British people refer to the EU as either the 'European Community' or the 'Common Market', two of the organisations that were combined into the EU in 1992.
Aside from the Inevitablid Caliphate, two common (and opposing) FH Cliches about the EU are:
In Star Wars fandom the 'Expanded Universe' (i.e. the Star Wars universe in novels and so forth outside the film series) is commonly abbreviated to EU. In Thande's AH.com Wars, this is parodied by having extra-filmatic material referred to as “European Union books”.