Specific information on each of the European Communities
Three organizations that were governed by the same institutions that were founded after the World War II to establish peace and prosperity in Europe.
EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY
First International Organization based on the principles of supranationalism, this meaning that a country can no longer decide various domestic and international policies on its own. The voting systems can mean that if a majority of members adopt a law it will also come into force in countries that voted against it. In this way the national parliaments have transferred some of their powers (competence) to the institutions.
The members of this IO that were Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and Netherlands.
The ECSC was first proposed by the French foreign minister Robert Schumann on may 9th1950 as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany. He declared his aim was to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible which was to be achieved by regional integration of which the ECSC was the first step. The treaty would create a common market between its members to neutralize competition between European nations over natural resources, particularly in the rower. The ECSC was run by four institutions and a high authority composed of independent appointees until they will be affected in 1957 by the Merger treaty. To know more about those institutions you will have to access another section of this blog.
EURATOM TREATY
Treaty that was signed on the 25thMarch of 1975 at the same time as the EEC and it establishes the European atomic energy. This treaty is important because it provides the basis for global cooperation when it comes to nuclear safeguards, to the processing of nuclear material and research and development. So we can say that it controls and governs the movement of a civil nuclear material in Europe. While the EEC has evolved into what is now the European Union, Euratom has remained much the same as is was in 1957. It was also governed by independent institutions but in 1967 The Merger Treaty merged the institutions of the ECSC, Euratom, EEC.
The Euratom treaty has seen very little amendment due to the later sensitivity surrounding nuclear power amongst European public opinion. Owing to this some arguments say that it has become too updated particularly in the areas of democratic oversight. It was not included as part of the treaty of the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe because they supposed that including the nuclear power in the treaty would turn more people against it. Nevertheless it forms part of the active treaties of the European Union. As an actual case involving Euratom we have the Brexit issue and what it will happen after it. There is an interesting video on the corresponding videos part of the blog where this situation is extendedly talked.
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
The EEC, sometimes referred to as the Common Market, was formally established on the 1st January 1958 and survived, with some changes under the Maastricht Treaty, until 2009 when it was absorbed into the European Union.The aim of the EEC was to establish economic integration between its members, such as a common market and customs union. Over time the EEC expanded its membership with Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joining in 1973; the 1980s saw the addition of Greece, Spain and Portugal. With the creation of the European Union in 1993 and its absorption of the EEC in 2009 the union currently contains 28 states, the most recent member being Croatia in July 2013.With the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the EC became the EU. Maastricht brought into being three ‘pillars’, the first of which remained the EC, the other two being Common Security and Foreign Policy (CFSP), and the second covering Justice and Home Affairs (JHA). Strictly speaking the EC went on existing, but in practice references to the EU eclipsed those to the EC – and the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 abolished the pillar structure.
European Communities 