European Community
| 1948 Brussels |
1952 Paris |
1958 Rome |
1967 Brussels |
1987 SEA |
1993 Maastricht |
1999 Amsterdam |
2003 Nice |
2009? Lisbon |
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| European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) | |||||||||
| European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) | European Union (EU) | ||||||||
| European Economic Community (EEC) | → P I L L A R S → |
European Community (EC) | |||||||
| ↑European Communities↑ | Justice & Home Affairs (JHA) | ||||||||
| Police & Judicial co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC) | |||||||||
| European Political Cooperation (EPC) | Common Foreign & Security Policy (CFSP) | ||||||||
| Western European Union (WEU) | |||||||||
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Aims and achievements
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (December 2007) |
The main aim of the EEC, as stated in its preamble, was to "preserve peace and liberty and to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe". Calling for balanced economic growth, this was to be accomplished through 1) the establishment of a customs union with a common external tariff 2) common policies for agriculture, transport and trade 3) enlargement of the EEC to the rest of Europe.[3] For the customs union, the treaty provided for a 10 % reduction in custom duties and up to 20 % of global import quotas. Progress on the customs union proceeded much faster than the twelve years planned, however France faced some setbacks due to their war with Algeria.[4]
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Members
- Further information: European Union member state and Enlargement of the European Union
Communities EU Pillar
Since 1992 the members of the EC are the same of those as the EU, a state cannot be part of one and not the other. There were six states which founded the original EEC: France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The first enlargement was in 1973, with the accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Greece, Spain and Portugal joined throughout in the 1980s. Following the creation of the EU in 1993, it has enlarged to include a further fifteen countries by 2007.
Member states are represented in some form in each institution. The Council is also composed of one national minister who represents their national government. Each state also has a right to one European Commissioner each, although in the European Commission they are not supposed to represent their national interest but that of the Community. Prior to 2004, the larger members (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) have had two Commissioners. In the European Parliament, members are allocated a set number seats related to their population, however these (since 1979) have been directly elected and they sit according to political allegiance, not national origin. Most other institutions, including the European Court of Justice, have some form of national division of its members.
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Institutions
- Further information: Institutions of the European Union
The EEC inherited some of the Institutions of the ECSC in that the Common Assembly and Court of Justice of the ECSC had their authority extended to the EEC and Euratom in the same role. However the EEC, and Euratom, had different executive bodies to the ECSC. In place of the ECSC's Council of Ministers was the Council of the European Economic Community, and in place of the High Authority was the Commission of the European Communities. There was greater difference between these than name: the French government of the day had grown suspicious of the supranational power of the High Authority and sought to curb its powers in favour of the intergovernmental style Council. Hence the Council had a greater executive role in the running of the Community than was the situation in the EEC. By virtue of the Merger Treaty in 1967, the executives of the ECSC and Euratom were merged with that of the EEC, creating a single institutional structure governing the three separate Communities. From here on, the term European Communities were used for the institutions (for example, the Commission of the European Communities.[5][6][7]
As the Communities gained more competencies, the institutional framework developed. For example, in 1970 and 1975 two budgetary treaties gave the Assembly (now the European Parliament) equal say with the Council over the Community budget and in 1979 the parliament was elected for the first time. These developments led to the Parliament being treated more as a serious partner to the Council. However in 1992, the Maastricht treaty which created the European Union cut out most Community institutions from the two new areas of co-operation under the pillar structure. Beyond the new Community pillar the Council dominated, however within the Community (especially following subsequent treaties) the power of the supranational institutions increased, especially the Parliament which became a co-legislator to the Council via the codecision procedure and gained more influence of the European Commission. It remains today that within the Community the Commission has sole right of initiative to draft EU law.
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Future
Under the Treaty of Lisbon the pillar structure would be abolished, merging the Community pillar with the others into a single European Union, over which Community institutions would have greater powers. This would include the legal personality of the Community which would hence be transferred to the Union.This was previously proposed under the European Constitution but that treaty failed ratification in 2005. The Treaty of Lisbon is planned to come into force in 2009, if fully ratified.
The Euratom treaty, unlike that of the ECSC, did not expire and despite proposals to merge that fully into the Union, it will continue to exist as a sole independent entity within the Union.
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References
- ^ Raymond F. Mikesell, The Lessons of Benelux and the European Coal and Steel Community for the European Economic Community, The American Economic Review, Vol. 48, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Seventieth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1958), pp. 428-441
- ^ Spaak report
- ^ The achievements of the EEC. European NAvigator. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ The European Customs Union. European NAvigator. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ Merging of the executives. European NAvigator. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
- ^ Council of the European Union. European NAvigator. Retrieved on 2007-06-24.
- ^ European Commission. European NAvigator. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
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Further reading
- Jean Monnet, Prospect for a New Europe (1959)
- Bela Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (1962)
- Walter Hallstein, A New Path to Peaceful Union (1962)
- Paul-Henri Spaak, The Continuing Battle: Memories of an European (1971)
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External links
- European Union website
- Treaty establishing the European Economic Community European NAvigator
- History of the Rome Treaties European NAvigator
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