This paper considers the original aims of the European Economic Community on its formation under the Treaty of Rome 1957 as a background to the transformation of the EEC into the European Community. A discussion of the subsequent development of the EC thereafter forms the main body of this work and the staged development of the EC through subsequent amending treaties provides the focus of the analysis offered.

A brief historical survey of the European Economic Community

The European Community of 2008 sees its origins in the six member European Economic Community formed by the ratification of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The signatory member states were France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux states. It is submitted at the outset that the EEC was founded largely on fear. It is hard to appreciate from the perspective of 2008, exactly what motivated the founding fathers of the Treaty of Rome to pursue integration because the world has moved on, but in the 1950s the base motivation was manifest and pressing. The continent of Europe had endured two catastrophic World Wars in the space of one generation. War had ravaged each and every country of Europe, and in particular the founding member states. The architects of the Treaty of Rome, including Italian Prime Minister Antonio Segni, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and French civil servant Jean Monnet, while undoubtedly harbouring in the back of their minds lofty notions of improving the economic and social conditions of European citizens, were above all preoccupied with the goal of reducing the chances of a third world war starting on the continent.

As stated, this fear is difficult to understand in the context of the early twenty first century and this is a testament to the greatest achievement of the European Economic Community and its successor organisations. The political and economic worlds of the major European powers are now so inextricably linked and integrated within the European Union that the notion of armed conflict between those powers has become almost unthinkable. It is argued that this is precisely what Segni, Schuman and Monnet were striving for above all other considerations. All the architects of European integration had suffered great personal and family losses as a result of the two most appalling wars ever to be fought in the modern world. Their most important and profound legacy is that their grandchildren and great grandchildren have been spared a similar experience. The substance of the integrationist treaty that preceded the Treaty of Rome is certainly no coincidence. The European Coal and Steel Treaty was signed in 1951. Why? Because coal and steel were the two great industries of twentieth century war. On the same day as the Treaty of Rome was signed, EURATOM was also signed, and the European Atomic Energy Community was created in order to institute cooperation and joint research that would presumably avoid an imbalance and power and knowledge which could threaten an unthinkable atomic war in Europe.