NEXT month voters in Wales and across the UK will go to the polls – again – in the long-awaited referendum into Britain’s membership of the European Union. But what does the EU actually do?

Ian Craig visited to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and spoke to some of our MEPs about their roles.

THE European Union arose following a post-World War Two agreement between France and Germany aimed at avoiding another conflict between the two nations.

The European Economic Community, or Common Market, was founded in 1957 with six member states – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. The UK, Ireland and Denmark joined in 1973 and Britain’s membership was confirmed with a referendum two years later, in which 67 per cent of voters backed membership of the union.

Since then 19 more countries have joined, the most recent being Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 and Croatia in 2013.

It is made up of four institutions – the European Commission creates new laws, administers the EU’s funds and is made up of 28 commissioners from each country, who are appointed rather than elected.

The European Parliament is made up of 751 directly-elected MEPs who vote on laws proposed by the Commission. There are currently four MEPs representing Wales – Plaid Cymru’s Jill Evans, Ukip’s Nathan Gill, Conservative Kay Swinburne, and Labour’s Derek Vaughan.

The governments of each member state meet at the Council of the EU to exert influence over policy areas. And the European Court of Justice enforces European law and rules on disagreements between member states.

The EU has power over areas including consumer rights, trading standards, pollution, agriculture and fishing and has also regulated on holiday pay, maternity leave and worker’s rights.

Most contentiously EU residents have the right to travel freely between member states, which some have blamed for the ongoing migrant crisis.

And supporters of the so-called Brexit have said leaving the union would mean the UK would regain control over these areas.

The UK contributes about £13bn to the EU each year while around £4.bn is re-invested into the country. This makes Britain a ‘net contributor’ to the EU to the tune of about £8.5bn – 12.6 per cent of its entire budget.

But a report released today, Tuesday, showed Wales receives £245m more in EU funding than it paid in – or about £79 a head.

According to the report by Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre Wales’ contribution to the EU in 2014 was £414m, but it received back £658m.

Derek Vaughan said ultimately the main goal of the EU was to maintain peace within Europe.

“The founding fathers of the EU said ‘This is crazy, Europe is going to war every 30 or 40 years, it’s just madness’,” he said.

“What they wanted to do was use economic means for political ends.

“We’ve had 70 years of peace ever since then.

“When I talk to my French and German colleagues, the economics are important to them but the huge support of the EU in keeping peace is the main thing.”

He added he believed being part of the union afforded people in the UK a great many rights and opportunities they may not otherwise have.

“From my point of view the big one is workers’ rights,” he said.

“People in the UK are guaranteed four weeks paid holiday due to EU legislation.

“The leave campaign want to go because they don’t like the legislation – they think we will leave and there’ll be a big bonfire of legislation.

“But it won’t be that simple.

“No one really knows what will happen.

“At the very best leaving the EU is a huge risk for Wales, and at worse it would be an economic disaster.”

His Conservative colleague Kay Swinburne said she believed Wales could stand to be particularly badly hit if the UK left the union.

“I am concerned about payments to farmers,” she said.

“The Welsh union suggests upwards of 80 per cent of Welsh farmers are wholly dependent on payments from the EU.

“That is much higher than in the rest of the UK.

“This isn’t about individual farmers – it’s about the stewardship of our countryside as a whole.”

She added: “Welsh lamb is another one.

“It’s an iconic product and more than half the sales go to Europe.

“But it would be subject to a 60 per cent tariff if we were out of the EU.”

Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans said she was firmly in favour of the EU, but felt there were many elements of it which could be changed.

“The meetings of the council are all in secret and minutes are not public,” she said.

“We have long called for the meetings to be more open and for them even to be streamed online.

“In the long-term we want to see Wales independent and represented in its own right.

“If Wales was independent we would have nine MEPs instead of four.

“That’s something I want to see in the future.”

Ms Evans added she was also disappointed Welsh is not recognised as a second language by the EU.

“Our young people are disadvantaged,” she said.

“There are so many people in Wales who are bilingual and if they want to come and work in Europe they have to learn a third language because Welsh isn’t recognised.”

One senior Welsh politician who is not in favour of remaining within the union is Monmouth MP Davies Davies, who has arisen as one of the key figures in the Welsh campaign to leave.

The Conservative MP said: “The European Union is a political project working to create a kind of federal European state.

“It always has been and that is no secret.”

He said he was particularly concerned about the number of laws affecting the UK which had been taken out of the hands of British MPs.

“The power isn’t held by our MEPs,” he said. “It’s held by the commissioners, who are not elected.

“What we have effectively done is hand over control to unelected civil servants.

“I think that’s wrong.”

Mr Davies added leaving the union did not mean breaking trade links within Europe.

“It is perfectly possible to have a good trading arrangement with countries outside the EU,” he said.

“We trade more with American than with the EU and we don’t even have a trading arrangement with them.

“Politicians don’t create trade – businesses do.”

He added: “We have to be aware of how the EU will look in five, 10 or 15 years time.

“Once the referendum is done we are stuck with it.

“We need to get back to a situation there the laws are made by British MPs and we have full control over the border and our money.”

Both sides claim to have the most compelling arguments, but who manages to sway voters will be seen when polls open on June 23.