2008 in the European Union
overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2008
Events in the year 2008 in the European Union.
2008 was designated as:
European Year of Intercultural Dialogue
Incumbents
President of the European Council
Janez Janša (Jan – Jun 2008)
Nicolas Sarkozy (July – Dec 2008)
Commission President
José Manuel Barroso
Council Presidency:
Slovenia (January – June)
France (July - December)
Parliament President
Hans-Gert Pöttering
High Representative
Javier Solana
Events
1 January - Cyprus and Malta join the eurozone.
1 January - Akrotiri and Dhekelia adopt the euro.
1 January - Slovenia starts the presidency of European Union as the first of new member states.
29 March - Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia implement the Schengen Agreement for airports.
1 July - France takes over the Presidency from Slovenia.
12 December - Switzerland joins the Schengen area.
References
External links
Video: What has Europe done for you in 2008?
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “2008 in the European Union” as overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2008. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2008. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2814237. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “2008 in the European Union” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.