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2009 in the European Union

overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2009

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ2814339 ↗
Source-derived summary

Events in the year 2009 in the European Union.

Incumbents

President of the European Council

Mirek Topolánek (Jan – May 2009)

Jan Fischer (May – Jun 2009)

Fredrik Reinfeldt (July – Dec 2009)

Commission President -

José Manuel Barroso

Council Presidency - Czech Republic (Jan – Jun 2009) and Sweden (July – Dec 2009)

High Representative

Javier Solana (to 1 December 2009)

Catherine Ashton (from 1 December 2009)

Events

January

January 1 - Czech Republic assumes the Presidency for the first time.

January 1 - Slovakia adopts the euro and becomes the 16th member of the Eurozone.

January 1 - Deadline by which goods in all member states of the European Union must be sold in metric units (this has already been completed everywhere, except in the United Kingdom). Road signs in the UK are unaffected (road signs in all other member states are already in metric units).

February

February 14 - Lithuania celebrates the millennium of its name.

May

May 7 - Inauguration of the Eastern Partnership in Prague.

June

June 4–7 - The 2009 European Parliament election takes place, the exact date varying depending on country. European People's Party form the largest group.

June 7 - A referendum on changing the Act of Succession is held in Denmark.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “2009 in the European Union” as overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2009. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where European, Union and overview can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as overview of European Union-related events during the year of 2009. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2814339. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2009 in the European Union”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2009 in the European Union primary sources, 2009 in the European Union archive and European research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2009 in the European Union”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2009 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.