The process that led to the establishment of the European Union

The point of departure was the 1951 Paris Treaty, by which the six founding Member States established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). They then adopted the Rome Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom), in 1957.

That was the beginning of the process which led to the establishment of the European Union (EU). Since then, and before the Lisbon Treaty, the original Rome Treaty has been modified by a number of successive amending treaties: the most important ones came into effect in 1987 (the Single European Act), in 1993 (the Maastricht Treaty), in 1999 (the Amsterdam Treaty) and in 2003 (the Nice Treaty).

The 1957 Rome Treaty (signed on 25 March 1957), which entered into force on 1 January 1958, established the EEC. The aim was to create a customs union, flanked by a common agricultural policy and by co-operation in other areas, in order to try and build a ‘common market’. The Council, composed of ministers representing the government of each Member State, took all the important decisions on the basis of proposals from the Commission, mostly on the basis of unanimity, sometimes consulting a Parliamentary Assembly composed of members delegated by the national parliaments of the Member States. It was decided later on (in 1976) that the members of this assembly would be elected by direct universal suffrage.