eu28

EU-28 is a designation used for the European Union when it had 28 member states, a period that lasted from 1 July 2013 to 31 January 2020. The term appears in statistical and policy contexts to describe the union with all its then members before the United Kingdom's withdrawal. It is commonly used by Eurostat and other EU institutions to compare data across the union as a whole.

During its 28-member phase, the EU included Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Croatia joined on 1 July 2013, expanding the bloc from 27 to 28 members. The United Kingdom retained certain opt-outs, notably from the euro currency and from the Schengen Area, even as it participated in other aspects of EU governance and the single market.

Brexit, formalized by the withdrawal on 31 January 2020, ended the EU-28 era and reduced the union to the EU-27. Since then, EU statistical and policy analysis has generally used EU-27 or other narrower designs, with historical data for EU-28 treated as a retrospective reference. The term remains in historical and comparative contexts to describe the bloc as it existed before Brexit.