The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was an organisation of six European countries created after World War II to regulate their industrial production under a centralised authority. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The ECSC was the first international organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism, and started the process of formal integration which ultimately led to the European Union.
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization that aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957. Upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated into the EU and renamed the European Community (EC). 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 European Union is a geo-political entity 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 6 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. 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 Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951 between France, Italy, West Germany, and the three Benelux countries, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which subsequently became part of the European Union. The treaty came into force on 23 July 1952 and expired on 23 July 2002, exactly fifty years after it came into effect.
The Treaty establishing the European Defence Community, also known as the Treaty of Paris, is an unratified treaty signed on 27 May 1952 by the six 'inner' countries of European integration: the Benelux countries, France, Italy, and West Germany. The treaty would have created a European Defence Community (EDC) with a pan-European defence force. The treaty failed to obtain ratification in the French parliament and it was never ratified by Italy, so it consequently never entered into force. Instead, the London and Paris Conferences provided for West Germany's accession to NATO and the Western European Union.
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building postwar European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO. The 1964–1965 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.
The European Communities (EC), sometimes referred to as the European Community, 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, which formed the European Union.
A supranational union is a type of multinational political union where negotiated power is delegated to an authority by governments of member states.
The Davignon report, also referred to as the Luxembourg report, published on 27 October 1970, was a report on the future foreign policy of European Economic Community member nations. It was written by a council chaired by Étienne Davignon of the Belgian Foreign Office. The committee was appointed by the Council of the European Communities to make proposals on political cooperation between the member states. It recommended that member states should try to speak with a single voice on international problems, a proposal that was approved by all six member governments. It resulted first in European Political Cooperation and later in the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy in 1992.
The Schuman Declaration was a speech made by the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Robert Schuman, on 9 May 1950. It proposed placing French and West German production of coal and steel under a single authority that would later be opened to other European countries. The ultimate goal was to pacify relations, between France and West Germany in particular, through gradual political integration, which would be achieved by creating common interests. Schuman asserted that "[t]he coming together of the countries of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany...the solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible."
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 period saw the first moves towards European unity as the first bodies began to be established in the aftermath of the Second World War. In 1951 the first community, the European Coal and Steel Community was established and moves on new communities quickly began. Early attempts at military and political unity failed, eventually leading to the Treaties of Rome in 1957.
The history of the European Communities between 1958 and 1972 saw the early development of the European Communities. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) had just been joined by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC), the latter of which soon became the most important. In 1967 the EEC's institutions took over the other two with the EEC's Commission holding its first terms under Hallstein and Rey.
This is a timeline of European Union history and its previous development.
The London and Paris Conferences were two related conferences held in London and Paris during September–October 1954 to determine the status of West Germany. The talks concluded with the signing of the Paris Agreements, which granted West Germany full sovereignty, ended the occupation, and allowed its admittance to NATO. Furthermore, both West Germany and Italy joined the Brussels Treaty on 23 October 1954. The Agreements went into force on 5 May 1955. The participating powers included France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, and remaining NATO members.
The Benelux memorandum of 1955 was a document drafted by the three Benelux countries on 18 May 1955 as a means to reviving European integration on the basis of a general common market.
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 Inner Six, or simply "the Six", were the six founding member states of the European Communities. They were in contrast to the outer seven group of countries who formed the European Free Trade Association rather than engage in supranational European integration. Five of the Outer Seven later would themselves later join the European Communities.
The Dupong-Schaus Ministry was the government of Luxembourg between 1 March 1947 and 3 July 1951. It was a coalition between the Christian Social People's Party (CSV), and the Democratic Group.
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