European Atomic Energy Community
| |
---|---|
Administrative body | European Commission |
Official languages | 24 languages |
Type | International organisation |
Members | EU member states Associated states: Switzerland United Kingdom |
Establishment | 1958 |
1 January 1958 | |
1 July 1967 |
The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) is an international organisation established by the Euratom Treaty on 25 March 1957 with the original purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, by developing nuclear energy and distributing it to its member states while selling the surplus to non-member states. However, over the years its scope has been considerably increased to cover a large variety of areas associated with nuclear power and ionising radiation as diverse as safeguarding of nuclear materials, radiation protection and construction of the International Fusion Reactor ITER. [1]
It is legally distinct from the European Union (EU) although it has the same membership, and is governed by many of the EU's institutions; but it is the only remaining community organisation that is independent of the EU and therefore outside the regulatory control of the European Parliament. Since 2014, Switzerland has also participated in Euratom programmes as an associated state. [2]
The United Kingdom ceased to be a full member of the organisation on 31 January 2020. [3] [4] However, under the terms of the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the United Kingdom participates in Euratom as an associated state following the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. [5]
The driving force behind the creation of Euratom was France's desire to develop nuclear energy and nuclear weapons without having to rely on the United States and/or the United Kingdom. [6] The costs of nuclear development were also large, motivating France to share the costs with the other members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). [6]
During the negotiations to create Euratom, the United States and the United Kingdom sought to gain influence over nuclear development in Europe. [6] The US and the UK created the European Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA) as a way to limit the value of Euratom and gain influence over the spread of nuclear technology. [6] The Soviet Union launched a propaganda campaign against Euratom, as it sought to stoke fears among Europeans that the organization would enable West Germany to develop nuclear weapons. [6]
The Common Assembly proposed extending the powers of the ECSC to cover other sources of energy. However, Jean Monnet, ECSC architect and President, wanted a separate community to cover nuclear power. Louis Armand was put in charge of a study into the prospects of nuclear energy use in Europe; his report concluded that further nuclear development was needed to fill the deficit left by the exhaustion of coal deposits and to reduce dependence on oil producers. However, the Benelux states and Germany were also keen on creating a general single market, although it was opposed by France due to its protectionism, and Jean Monnet thought it too large and difficult a task. In the end, Monnet proposed the creation of separate atomic energy and economic communities to reconcile both groups. [7]
The Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the Château of Val-Duchesse in 1956 drew up the essentials of the new treaties. Euratom would foster cooperation in the nuclear field, at the time a very popular area, and would, along with the EEC, share the Common Assembly and Court of Justice of the ECSC, but not its executives. Euratom would have its own Council and Commission, with fewer powers than the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community. On 25 March 1957, the Treaties of Rome (the Euratom Treaty and the EEC Treaty) were signed by the six ECSC members and on 1 January 1958 they came into force. [6] [8] [9] [10]
To save on resources, these separate executives created by the Rome Treaties were merged in 1965 by the Merger Treaty. The institutions of the EEC would take over responsibilities for the running of the ECSC and Euratom, with all three then becoming known as the European Communities even if each legally existed separately. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty created the European Union, which absorbed the Communities into the European Community pillar, yet Euratom still maintained a distinct legal personality.
The European Constitution was intended to consolidate all previous treaties and increase democratic accountability in them. The Euratom treaty had not been amended as the other treaties had, so the European Parliament had been granted few powers over it. However, the reason it had gone unamended was the same reason the Constitution left it to remain separate from the rest of the EU: anti-nuclear sentiment among the European electorate, which may unnecessarily turn voters against the treaty. [11] [12] [13] The Euratom treaty thus remains in force relatively unamended from its original signing.
This overall timeline includes the establishment and development of Euratom, and shows that currently, it is the only former EC body that has not been incorporated into the EU.
Since the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.
This article is part of a series on |
European Unionportal |
The United Kingdom announced its intention to withdraw from the EAEC on 26 January 2017, following on from its decision to withdraw from the European Union. [14] [25] [26] [27] Formal notice to withdraw from the EAEC was provided in March 2017, within the Article 50 notification letter, where the withdrawal was made explicit. [28] Withdrawal only became effective following negotiations on the terms of the exit, which lasted two years and ten months.
A report by the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, published in May 2017, questioned the legal necessity of leaving Euratom and called for a temporary extension of membership to allow time for new arrangements to be made. [29]
In June 2017, the European Commission's negotiations task force published a Position paper transmitted to EU27 on nuclear materials and safeguard equipment (Euratom), titled "Essential Principles on nuclear materials and safeguard equipment". [30] The following month, a briefing paper from the House of Commons Library assessed the implications of leaving Euratom. [31]
In 2017, an article in The Independent questioned the availability of nuclear fuel to the UK after 2019 if the UK were to withdraw, and the need for new treaties relating to the transportation of nuclear materials. [32] A 2017 article in the New Scientist stated that radioisotope supply for cancer treatments would also need to be considered in new treaties. [33]
UK politicians speculated that the UK could stay in Euratom. In 2017, some argued that this would require – beyond the consent of the EU27 – amendment or revocation of the Article 50 letter of March 2017. [34]
The Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 , making provision for safeguards after withdrawal from Euratom, received royal assent on 26 June 2018. [35]
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, outlining the UK's relationship with the European Union from 1 January 2021, makes provision for the United Kingdom's participation "as an associated country of all parts of the Euratom programme". [5]
In the history of European regulation, Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty represents pioneering legislation concerning binding transfrontier obligations with respect to environmental impact and protection of humans. [36] [ clarification needed ]
The five-member Commission was led by only three presidents while it had independent executives (1958–1967), all from France:[ citation needed ]
N. | Portrait | President (Born–Died) | State | Took office | Left office | Commission | Party | Group | Electoral mandate | Refs | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Louis Armand (1905–1971) | France | 7 January 1958 | 2 February 1959 | Armand | Independent | None | – | |||
1 year, 26 days | |||||||||||
2 | Étienne Hirsch (1901–1994) | France | 2 February 1959 | 10 January 1962 | Hirsch | Independent | None | – | |||
3 years, 8 days | |||||||||||
3 | Pierre Chatenet (1917–1997) | France | 10 January 1962 | 5 July 1967 | Chatenet | Independent | None | – | |||
5 years, 176 days |
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to integrate Europe's coal and steel industries into a single common market based on the principle of supranationalism which would be governed by the creation of a High Authority which would be made up of appointed representatives from the member states who would not represent their national interest, but would take and make decisions in the general interests of the Community as a whole. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany and was generally seen as the first step in the process of European integration following the end of the Second World War in Europe. The organization's subsequent enlargement of both members and duties ultimately led to the creation of the European Union.
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union (EU) in 1993. In the popular language, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar. The EEC was also known as the European Common Market (ECM) in the English-speaking countries, and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was officially renamed as such in 1993. In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.
The Western European Union was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The WEU implemented the Modified Brussels Treaty. During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU member-states, plus the United States and Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The European Union is a geo-political entity, created in 1993, covering a large portion of the European continent. It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions and secessions that have taken it from six member states to 27, a majority of the states in Europe.
The Treaty of Rome, or EEC Treaty, brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the best known of the European Communities (EC). The treaty was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and it came into force on 1 January 1958. Originally the "Treaty establishing the European Economic Community", and now continuing under the name "Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union", it remains one of the two most important treaties in what is now the European Union (EU).
The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community (EEC), the last of which was renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union. The European Union was established at that time more as a concept rather than an entity, while the Communities remained the actual subjects of international law impersonating the rather abstract Union, becoming at the same time its first pillar. In popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes used interchangeably with the plural phrase, in the sense of referring to all three entities.
An entity to be named the European Political Community (EPC) was proposed in 1952 as a combination of the existing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the proposed European Defence Community (EDC). A draft EPC treaty, as drawn up by the ECSC assembly, would have seen a directly elected assembly, a senate appointed by national parliaments and a supranational executive accountable to the parliament.
The special territories of members of the European Economic Area (EEA) are the 32 special territories of EU member states and EFTA member states which, for historical, geographical, or political reasons, enjoy special status within or outside the European Union and the European Free Trade Association.
The Merger Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Brussels, was a European treaty which unified the executive institutions of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC). The treaty was signed in Brussels on 8 April 1965 and came into force on 1 July 1967. It set out that the Commission of the European Communities should replace the High Authority of the ECSC, the Commission of the EEC and the Commission of Euratom, and that the Council of the European Communities should replace the Special Council of Ministers of the ECSC, the Council of the EEC and the Council of Euratom. Although each Community remained legally independent, they shared common institutions and were together known as the European Communities. This treaty is regarded by some as the real beginning of the modern European Union.
Between 1993 and 2009, the European Union (EU) legally comprised three pillars. This structure was introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993, and was eventually abandoned on 1 December 2009 upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, when the EU obtained a consolidated legal personality.
The Euratom Treaty, officially the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, established the European Atomic Energy Community. It was signed on 25 March 1957 at the same time as the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community.
The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western Union (WU) between 1948 and 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB) and served as the founding treaty of the Western European Union (WEU) until its termination in 2010. The treaty provided for the organisation of military, economic, social and cultural cooperation among member states as well as a mutual defence clause.
The year 1948 marked the beginning of the institutionalised modern European integration. With the start of the Cold War, the Treaty of Brussels was signed in 1948 establishing the Western Union (WU) as the first organisation. In the same year, the International Authority for the Ruhr and the Organization for European Economic Co-operation, the predecessor of the OECD, were also founded, followed in 1949 by the Council of Europe, and in 1951 by the European Coal and Steel Community, with the ensuing moves to create further communities leading to the Treaty of Rome (1957).
This is a timeline of European Union history and its previous development.
The Spaak Committee was an Intergovernmental Committee set up by the Foreign Ministers of the six Member States of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) as a result of the Messina Conference of 1955. The Spaak Committee started its work on 9 July 1955 and ended on 20 April 1956, when the Heads of Delegation of the six Member States of the ECSC approved the Spaak report. The committee worked on two main topics, one was the creation of a general common market and the other one was the establishment of a European Community for the peaceful use of atomic energy.
The Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom was held in Brussels and started on 26 June 1956 with a session in the Grand Salon of the Belgian Foreign Ministry. The negotiations went on at the Château of Val-Duchesse in Auderghem (Brussels) and would continue until March 1957. The conference was held to draft the Treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community. The conference built on the results of the Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee and the decision taken at the Venice Conference to prepare the plan for the establishment of a common market and the establishment of a European Community for the peaceful use of atomic energy.
The High Authority was the executive branch of the former European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It was created in 1951 and disbanded in 1967 when it was merged into the European Commission.
The Western Union (WU), also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO), was the European military alliance established between France, the United Kingdom (UK) and the three Benelux countries in September 1948 in order to implement the Treaty of Brussels signed in March the same year. Under this treaty the signatories, referred to as the five powers, agreed to collaborate in the defence field as well as in the political, economic and cultural fields.
This article outlines the history of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union (EU), a part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).
The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is a free trade agreement signed on 30 December 2020, between the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the United Kingdom (UK). It provisionally applied from 1 January 2021, when the Brexit transition period ended, before formally entering into force on 1 May 2021, after the ratification processes on both sides were completed: the UK Parliament ratified on 30 December 2020; the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union ratified in late April 2021.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)