European Economic Community
The European Economic Community ( EEC) was the original name of a merger of European countries to promote common economic policy in the context of European integration. On 25 March 1957, the EEC was established with the signing of the Treaty of Rome by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1993, the EEC was renamed considering its now extended task in European Community ( EC); it was dissolved by the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009.
History
The idea of creating a common market dates back to the time of the failed EDC contracts in 1952. Several European politicians such as Jean Monnet, Belgian Foreign Minister Paul -Henri Spaak and its Dutch counterpart Willem Beyen were instrumental in the revival of the European spirit. They saw the best way of European cooperation in the economic field, since after the rejection of the EDC by the French National Assembly (August 30, 1954), this form of European cooperation was in the military and political spheres failed for the time being.
On the Messina Conference in June 1955, the Foreign Ministers of the ECSC decided a general economic unification of the economies, the creation of joint supranational institutions, a social harmonization through implementation of general social standards and cooperation in the nuclear sector. It was decided to set up a government committee chaired by Paul -Henri Spaak ( " Spaak Commission " ) to prepare the basics and possibilities of the common market ( question of involvement of various sectors of the economy ) at the Conference of Messina. Within the German Federal Government, there were different trends; two dominated:
- The institutionalists want to realize the economic integration of Europe through economic policies and a central High Authority;
- The functionalists, however, they wanted to achieve through free trade and as little intervention of a European body.
The six members of the ECSC agreed at the intergovernmental negotiations on the basis of the Spaak Commission report on the standardization of the common market
- By abolishing quotas (quantitative import and export restrictions) and tariff barriers,
- By free movement of services, persons and capital,
- By a common commercial policy towards third countries and
- Through the creation of European institutions.
It also reached an agreement on the peaceful use of atomic energy (Euratom ). The negotiations on the Common Market were under the impression of the Hungarian uprising (1956) and the Suez crisis; This led the Government the necessity of European cooperation vividly. The Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty ) and that of the European Atomic Energy Community ( EAG-Vertrag/Euratom ) were on 25 March 1957 in Rome by the six members of the ECSC - France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - signed ( the Treaty of Rome ). On January 1, 1958, the Treaties entered into force; Walter Hallstein became the first president of the EEC Commission.
On 1 January 1961, the company entered a partial harmonization of national customs duties for the EEC countries with the goal of a unified external tariff. The implementation of the Customs Union and the introduction of a common external tariff on July 1, 1968. In June 1961 an Association Agreement between the EEC and Greece was signed.
In the summer of 1961, the three states Ireland (July 31), UK ( August 9 ) and Denmark (10 August ) the application to join the EEC. On April 30, in 1962 Norway applied for accession. Due to the resistance of France, the accession negotiations between the EEC and Britain were canceled on 29 January 1963. On July 20, 1963, the signing of the Yaoundé Convention, an association agreement Francophone African States and Madagascar with the EEC and on 12 September 1963 with Turkey took place. On 8 April 1965 contract was signed establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities ( " Merger Agreement "); so that the Executives of the European Communities (ECSC, EEC and Euratom) were merged.
1967 requested the UK (May 10 ), Denmark (May 11 ) and Norway (July 24 ) for the second time to join the EC and Sweden on 28 July for the first time. An association agreement between the EC and Morocco and Tunisia was completed on March 4, 1969. On July 29, 1969, a second Yaoundé Convention was signed and entered into force on 1 January 1971.
On 1 and 2 December 1969, the Heads of State and Government of the Community preconceived at their summit in The Hague decisions to accelerate the integration, introduction of an Economic and Monetary Union ( EMU) by 1980 and to political cooperation and the opening of accession negotiations with Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland and Norway.
With the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, the EEC, one of the three European Communities ( EC), in European Community ( EC) and was renamed one of the three pillars of the European Union.