| History of the European Union |
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The European Political Co-operation (EPC) was the common term for the co-ordination of foreign policy between member states of the European Communities (EC) from its inception in 1970 until the EPC was superseded by the new European Union's (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in November 1993. [1]
In the 1950s and 1960s, the EC member states tried twice to give the internal market a foreign policy dimension but failed on both attempts. The concept of EPC had been under consideration from early 60s but due to opinion difference between General de Gaulle and his partners, its implementation had been halted. Subsequent development of both political and economic activities in countries outside Europe forced the members to review their foreign policies. This was after General de Gaulle retired from political office. [1]
The idea of the supranational European Defence Community came about following a summit in The Hague (1969) in which the EC heads of state and government instructed their foreign ministers to "study the best way of achieving progress in the matter of political unification, within the context of enlargement." [2] The foreign ministers subsequently drafted the Luxembourg/Davignon report (1970), which created an informal intergovernmental consultation mechanism where member states could achieve "politics of scale" (Ginsberg, 1989). [3]
While EPC adopted the intergovernmental nature of the Fouchet Plans, it disregarded the 'French grandeur' of the Charles de Gaulle era. The involvement of the United Kingdom guaranteed its Atlanticist nature. The European Commission would furthermore be able to express its opinion if matters within its competencies were concerned. [4] Finally, the EPC did not have the strong Paris-based Secretariat of the Fouchet proposals. The Netherlands had always been anxious about this idea, as they thought that it might turn into a competitor for the European Commission. [5]
On 6 January 1981, Hans Dietrich Genscher in his speech emphasized on the importance of EPC strengthening. [1]
The EPC was amended and strengthened in the Copenhagen report (1973) and London report (1981). It was codified (formalized) with the Single European Act (1986).
The EPC turned out to be a "mixed success." During the 1970s, it was an active player in the Middle East conflict and in the creation of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the predecessor of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The Soviet–Afghan War (1979) and the handling of the Yugoslav Wars (1991–1995), however, showed the weakness of the EPC.[ citation needed ]
The EPC was superseded by the Common Foreign and Security Policy in the Maastricht Treaty of November 1993. [6]
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.
| Legend: S: signing F: entry into force T: termination E: expiry de facto supersession Rel. w/ EC/EU framework: de facto inside outside |  European Union (EU) | [ Cont. ] | |||||||||||||||
| European Communities (EC) | (Pillar I) | ||||||||||||||||
| European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) | [ Cont. ] | ||||||||||||||||
 /  /  /  European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) | |||||||||||||||||
| European Economic Community (EEC) | |||||||||||||||||
| Schengen Rules | European Community (EC) | ||||||||||||||||
| 'TREVI' | Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, pillar II) | ||||||||||||||||
 /  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) | [Cont.] | Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC, pillar II) | |||||||||||||||
  Anglo-French alliance | [Defence arm handed to NATO] | European Political Co-operation (EPC) | Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, pillar III) | ||||||||||||||
 Western Union (WU) |  /  Western European Union (WEU) | [Tasks defined following the WEU's 1984 reactivation handed to the EU] | |||||||||||||||
| [Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE] | [Cont.] | ||||||||||||||||
| Council of Europe (CoE) | |||||||||||||||||
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and for common foreign and security policies. Although these were widely seen to presage a "federal Europe", the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union.
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 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 Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951 between France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, 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 European Atomic Energy Community 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.
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 unified defence force acting as an autonomous European pillar within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The ratification process was completed in the Benelux countries and West Germany, but stranded after the treaty was rejected in the French National Assembly. Instead, the London and Paris Conferences provided for West Germany's accession to NATO and the Western European Union (WEU), the latter of which was a transformed version of the pre-existing Western Union. The historian Odd Arne Westad calls the plan "far too complex to work in practice".
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 the popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately 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 Treaty of Amsterdam, officially the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts, was signed on 2 October 1997, and entered into force on 1 May 1999; it made substantial changes to the Treaty of Maastricht, which had been signed in 1992.
The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) it helped codify European Political Co-operation. The amending treaty was signed at Luxembourg City on 17 February 1986 and at The Hague on 28 February 1986. It came into effect on 1 July 1987, under the Delors Commission.
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 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 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.
This is a timeline of European Union history and its previous development.
The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed on 4 March 1947, between France and the United Kingdom in Dunkirk (France) as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance against a possible German attack in the aftermath of World War II. It entered into force on 8 September 1947 and according with article VI paragraph 2 of its text it remained in force for a period of fifty years.
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 Rome Declaration was the document signed at an extraordinary session held by the Council of Ministers of the Western European Union (WEU) in Rome on 26 and 27 October 1984 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB). The declaration decided to make better use of WEU to increase cooperation between the member states in the field of security policy, and reactivated the WEU.
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