What was eu called before

As a result of those catastrophes, European leaders and thinkers came to an agreement that the only way to sustain peace is to unite countries in economic as well as political terms. The establishment of an organization, which could overcome the national conflicts in Europe, stemmed from resistance movements that fought against totalitarian regimes during the World War II. On May 9 th , Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister, encouraged European states to transfer the decisions on coal and steel production to an independent and supranational institution based on the draft of Jean Monnet who was former Secretary General of the League of Nations.

According to Schuman Plan, the centuries-old contest between France and Germany had to come to an end in order to establish peace in Europe. The ways to achieve that were to assure the collective production of coal and steel under the institution and to keep this organization accessible for all European states. The first president of the High Authority of the Community was Jean Monnet, who provided the inspiration for this idea of the Schuman Declaration. Thus, coal and steel, which were the raw materials of the war, became tools for peace and, for the first time in the history, states transferred some part of their sovereignty to a supranational institution by their own will.

In , six member states decided to establish an economic community based on the free movement of workers, goods and services. Consequently, in , after the Treaty of Rome was signed, European Economic Community EEC founded in order to establish economic unity in other sectors besides coal and steel.

The main goal of the EEC was to set a common market where there is a free movement of goods, workers, services and capital, so finally to reach political integration. The aim of the community was to coordinate the research programs of member states to ensure that the use of nuclear energy is safe and limited with peaceful purposes. Since then, these communities were named as European Communities. Custom duties on manufactured goods were abolished on 1 July before scheduled.

Common policies, particularly agricultural and trade policies, had fallen into place in the late s. After a tough period of negotiation where France, under the rule of General de Gaulle, exercised veto power twice in and against British membership, these three countries became members in With the participation of Greece in , Spain and Portugal in , the Community expanded towards the south.

Thus, the number of members reached However, after this situation was replaced by hopeful expectations for revival of the Community. The Community aimed to form a single market by 1 January , based on the White Paper prepared by the Commission under the Presidency of Jacques Delors in The originality of the European Union derives from the special way in which its various constituent parts have evolved.

The European Union came into being with the adoption of the Treaty of Maastricht in , and it brought together three organisations established in the s to integrate activity in specific sectors the European Communities , and two areas of intergovernmental cooperation common foreign and security policy and justice and home affairs.

Since then, the resulting structure has been described as one with three pillars , the first of which is supranational, comprising the three Communities, each of which has its own legal personality. The European Union does not have legal personality, however, even though it encompasses the Community pillar and the two intergovernmental pillars within a common institutional structure. The result of this pooling of policies was an innovative type of body — a supranational organisation — formed by the voluntary transfer of certain sovereign powers by its Member States.

Member States did not surrender their powers: they decided to exercise them jointly at a higher level which had common institutions. As specialist organisations, each of the three Communities holds only those powers conferred on them by the Member States.

Notwithstanding its economic foundations, the objective of European Union was, from the outset, political. In effect, specific actions in a given sector of the economy were bound to have an impact on the way in which other sectors operated. The questions that this raised needed answers which implied political choices. Accordingly, the completion of a common market involving free movement of goods raised the question of the movement of people, services and capital, and that required the introduction of a raft of supporting policies in the areas of competition, industry, agriculture, transport, research, etc.

Ultimately — little by little — complementary policies addressing the problems of more sensitive national prerogatives were adopted.

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