Europe in the 25th century remains an important and relevant center of the planet despite its former division between the European Union and Warsaw Pact. The one nation that does not follow this trend is the neutral state of Switzerland. While on paper Switzerland is unique on Earth in that it is technically not a Sovereign Solarian Nation or regional province of Earth and is instead an independent nation, it is a de facto member of the Alliance and all Swiss citizens automatically hold dual citizenship in the Alliance. It, along with Luna, has long been diplomatic neutral ground for humanity and a variety of treaties -- such as those ending the Interstellar War and recognising the independence of breakaway states such as the Republic of Biesel -- have been signed here.
The European Union is the unquestioned economic power of the European continent and home to many of the companies that would eventually form the foundations of humanity’s megacorporations. The modern EU consists of a multitude of smaller semi-independent nations from Scandinavia, the British Isles, Western Europe, Iberia, and the Balkans. The most important of these member states is generally considered to be France, which is home to the EU’s largest city and the seat of Earth’s planetary government, Paris. The city is not just notable for these traits however, but also for its long history of being a city on the cutting edge of the sciences, particularly those relating to Aerospace and Nuclear Science. It is also where practical fusion power was invented in 2027, a year which many historians consider to be the start of a new Human Era. West Germany is also a strong force in the economy of the European Union, and is considered the spiritual home of Hephaestus Industries by virtue of it where some of their first engineering facilities and factories on Earth were built. Also of importance is Italy, which is more closely aligned with the Mediterranean nations such as the United Arab Republic through the Mediterranean Economic Pact, commonly called the Med-7 agreement. The Vatican City, located in Italy, is both the smallest member state of the Alliance and also one of its most-visited tourist locations, with millions performing pilgrimages to it every year. Other locations in the European Union, such as Yugoslavia, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain, are also commonly visited for their natural and cultural beauty by Humans from all over the Orion Spur. The EU is where Terraneus Diagnostics -- a subsidiary of Einstein Engines that would later go on to invent the first practical IPC frames. The Romance languages found throughout Western Europe formed the basis of modern Tradeband.
The United Kingdom never formally joined the European Union and instead reinvested itself into its former colonies through the establishment of the international organisation known as the Commonwealth of Nations that focused on being an economic and cultural partnership between all of its member states. As colonisation became more prominent as well, the Commonwealth, headed by the United Kingdom, took to the stars and established numerous colonies throughout human space, the most notable and successful being the colony on the Jovian moon of Callisto. In the present day, the Commonwealth is still a strong economic partnership, though it has declined in notoriety since it stopped colonising worlds across the spur. It maintains a positive relationship with nearly all of its former colonies, however, aside from those no longer in Solarian space, and often coordinates trade between its member states and these colonial worlds.
The European Union’s opposite in Europe is the Warsaw Pact, formerly a military alliance of socialist nations long in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence that transformed into an economic and colonial cooperative pact after the establishment of the Solarian Alliance in the early 2130’s . The countries of the Pact lagged behind their Western counterparts as megacorporations gained more and more power until what would eventually become Zavodskoi Interstellar was founded as an effort to unify the heavy industry of the Pact into a cohesive industrial force. In the years since the Pact has caught up to, though not surpassed, its western counterpart. The strongest economies in the Warsaw Pact are East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, with each having a respective focus in arms development, ship building, and robotics. The Warsaw Pact’s economic woes in the Second Great Depression caused it to experience a period of social and political instability during the Earth’s climate crisis, which would result in the Pact -- working alongside Soviet authorities -- deporting a great number of political dissidents to the colony of Visegrad. Most Earthers from the Pact that go abroad find themselves working for Zavodskoi Interstellar.
To the east of the Warsaw Pact lies its historical overlord, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR is an intimidating economic strongman on Earth that has a unique, and often strained, relationship with the greater Solarian Alliance and the corporations that have come to dominate its economy. The Soviet Union maintains a strict policy of disallowing the operations of any corporation aside from the state-sponsored Zavodskoi Interstellar inside its borders and sphere of influence, which has won the Union very few friends abroad. Regardless of this cold attitude though, the old Union maintains a significant amount of clout in Earth’s politics and economy due to its size and dominant heavy industry, much of which was critical to Earth’s climate restoration project. The Soviet Union has also been the most supportive of any region on Earth of the recent establishment of the Solarian Corporate Authority and the expulsion of NanoTrasen from Solarian space following the collapse of Solarian authorities in its outer colonies in 2462. Soviet citizens that travel abroad are almost always employed by Zavodskoi Interstellar, thanks to the state’s sponsorship of the megacorporation. The USSR’s most well-known colonial ventures are the establishment of the Zvezda moonbase in the 1980’s on Luna, the first permanent human extraterrestrial settlement, and the settlement of Pluto and the moons surrounding it, which now serve as the Alliance’s primary source of the valuable gas Helium-3.
While the Pact and EU are still often at one another’s throats politically and economically in the eternal game of vying for resources and influence over the global affairs of Earth’s Government, the Mediterranean Economic Pact, sometimes referred to as the Mediterranean Seven, Med-7, or Med-Sev, represents an alleged third option, though its influence has waned since its golden age in the 22nd century. The MEP is an unusual economic cooperation agreement between countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea originally designed to both counterbalance the economic power of Asia and North America and allow its constituent nations, some of which were already members of the EU or the United Arab Republic, to afford then costly colonization projects. While its economic cooperation terms remain in effect, it is now primarily a ceremonial organization that shows the historical friendship of the Mediterranean nations. Its founding members were Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey, with the other nations of Cyprus, Bulgaria, Morocco, Romania, and Portugal cooperating with the Med-7's colonization initiatives though not integrating into the MEP proper. The most notable achievement of the MEP was the colonization of Assunzione, which still remains one of the farthest planets from Earth that has been successfully colonized. There are movements within the Med-Sev nations to try and establish cultural exchanges or trade agreements with their far-flung former-colony in the name of extending the friendship now so emphasised by the organisation, though these efforts have met staunch resistance in the new political climate of a post-collapse Solarian Alliance.
