Creation of the European Economic Community

On March 25, 1957, the six ECSC members signed the two Treaties of Rome that established the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)—which was designed to facilitate cooperation in atomic energy development, research, and utilization—and the European Economic Community (EEC). The EEC created a common market that featured the elimination of most barriers to the movement of goods, services, capital, and labour, the prohibition of most public policies or private agreements that inhibit market competition, a common agricultural policy (CAP), and a common external trade policy.

The treaty establishing the EEC required members to eliminate or revise important national laws and regulations. In particular, it fundamentally reformed tariff and trade policy by abolishing all internal tariffs by July 1968. It also required that governments eliminate national regulations favouring domestic industries and cooperate in areas in which they traditionally had acted independently, such as international trade (i.e., trade with countries outside the EEC). The treaty called for common rules on anticompetitive and monopolistic behaviour and for common inland transportation and regulatory standards. Recognizing social policy as a fundamental component of economic integration, the treaty also created the European Social Fund, which was designed to enhance job opportunities by facilitating workers’ geographic and occupational mobility.

Significantly, the treaty’s common market reforms did not extend to agriculture. The CAP, which was implemented in 1962 and which became the costliest and most controversial element of the EEC and later the EU, relied on state intervention to protect the living standards of farmers, to promote agricultural self-sufficiency, and to ensure a reliable supply of products at reasonable prices.

Like the ECSC, the EEC established four major governing institutions: a commission, a ministerial council, an assembly, and a court. To advise the Commission and the Council of Ministers on a broad range of social and economic policies, the treaty created an Economic and Social Committee. In 1965 members of the EEC signed the Brussels Treaty, which merged the commissions of the EEC and Euratom and the High Authority of the ECSC into a single commission. It also combined the councils of the three organizations into a common Council of Ministers. The EEC, Euratom, and the ECSC—collectively referred to as the European Communities—later became the principal institutions of the EU.

The Commission (officially known as the European Commission) consists of a permanent civil service directed by commissioners. It has had three primary functions: to formulate community policies, to monitor compliance with community decisions, and to oversee the execution of community law. Initially, commissioners were appointed by members to renewable four-year terms, which were later extended to five years. The Commission is headed by a president, who is selected by the heads of state or heads of government of the organization’s members. In consultation with member governments, the president appoints the heads of the Directorate-Generals, which manage specific areas such as agriculture, competition, the environment, and regional policy. The Commission has shared its agenda-setting role with the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of Europe, an organization that is not an EU body), which consists of the leaders of all member countries. Established in 1974, the European Council meets at least twice a year to define the long-term agenda for European political and economic integration. The European Council is led by a president, an office that originally rotated among the heads of state or heads of government of member countries every six months. Upon the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the presidency was made permanent, with the officeholder being selected by European Council members. The president of the European Council serves a term of two and a half years—renewable once—and functions as the “face” of the EU in policy matters. The first “president of the EU,” as the office came to be known, was former Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy.

The main decision-making institution of the EEC and the European Community (as the EEC was renamed in 1993) and the EU has been the Council of the European Union (originally the Council of Ministers), which consists of ministerial representatives. The composition of the council changes frequently, as governments send different representatives depending on the policy area under discussion. All community legislation requires the approval of the council. The president of the council, whose office rotates among council members every six months, manages the legislative agenda. Council meetings are chaired by a minister from the country that currently holds the presidency. The exception to this rule is the Foreign Affairs Council, which, since the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, is under the permanent supervision of the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

The Common Assembly, renamed the European Parliament in 1962, originally consisted of delegates from national parliaments. Beginning in 1979, members were elected directly to five-year terms. The size of members’ delegations varies depending on population. The Parliament is organized into transnational party groups based on political ideology—e.g., the Party of European Socialists, the European People’s Party, the European Federation of Green Parties, and the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party. Until 1987 the legislature served only as a consultative body, though in 1970 it was given joint decision-making power (with the Council of Ministers) over community expenditures.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) interprets community law, settles conflicts between the organization’s institutions, and determines whether members have fulfilled their treaty obligations. Each member selects one judge, who serves a renewable six-year term; to increase efficiency, after the accession of 10 additional countries in 2004 the ECJ was allowed to sit in a “grand chamber” of only 13 judges. Eight impartial advocates-general assist the ECJ by presenting opinions on cases before the court. In 1989 an additional court, the Court of First Instance, was established to assist with the community’s increasing caseload. The ECJ has established two important legal doctrines. First, European law has “direct effect,” which means that treaty provisions and legislation are directly binding on individual citizens, regardless of whether their governments have modified national laws accordingly. Second, community law has “supremacy” over national law in cases where the two conflict. The promulgation of the Lisbon Treaty signaled the acceptance of these legal doctrines by national courts, and the ECJ has acquired a supranational legal authority.

Throughout the 1970s and ’80s the EEC gradually expanded both its membership and its scope. In 1973 the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Ireland were admitted, followed by Greece in 1981 and Portugal and Spain in 1986. (The United Kingdom had applied for membership in the EEC in 1963 and in 1966, but its application was vetoed by French Pres. Charles de Gaulle.) The community’s common external trade policy generated pressure for common foreign and development policies, and in the early 1970s the European Political Cooperation (EPC; renamed the Common Foreign and Security Policy by the Maastricht Treaty), consisting of regular meetings of the foreign ministers of each country, was established to coordinate foreign policy. In 1975 the European Regional Development Fund was created to address regional economic disparities and to provide additional resources to Europe’s most deprived areas. In the same year, members endorsed the Lomé Convention, a development-assistance package and preferential-trade agreement with numerous African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. Members also made several attempts to manage their exchange rates collectively, resulting in the establishment of the European Monetary System in 1979.

Single European Act

The Single European Act (SEA), which entered into force on July 1, 1987, significantly expanded the EEC’s scope. It gave the meetings of the EPC a legal basis, and it called for more intensive coordination of foreign policy among members, though foreign policy decisions were made outside community institutions. The agreement brought the European Regional Development Fund formally into the community’s treaties as part of a new section on economic and social cohesion that aimed to encourage the development of economically depressed areas. As a result of the act, there was a substantial increase in funding for social and regional programs. The SEA also required the community’s economic policies to incorporate provisions for the protection of the environment, and it provided for a common research and technological-development policy, which was aimed primarily at funding transnational research efforts.

More generally, the SEA set out a timetable for the completion of a common market. A variety of legal, technical, fiscal, and physical barriers continued to limit the free movement of goods, labour, capital, and services. For example, differences in national health and safety standards for consumer goods were a potential impediment to trade. To facilitate the completion of the common market by 1992, the community’s legislative process was modified. Originally, the Commission proposed legislation, the Parliament was consulted, and the Council of Ministers made a final decision. The council’s decisions generally needed unanimity, a requirement that gave each member a veto over all legislation. The SEA introduced qualified majority voting for all legislation related to the completion of the common market. Under this system, each member was given multiple votes, the number of which depended on national population, and approval of legislation required roughly two-thirds of the votes of all members. The new procedure also increased the role of the European Parliament. Specifically, legislative proposals that were rejected by the Parliament could be adopted by the Council of Ministers only by a unanimous vote.