European Community

 

European Community Communauté européenne (French) Europäische Gemeinschaft (German) Европейское сообщество (Russian) Comunidad Europea (Spanish)
Flag
Headquarters	Berlin, Germany
Working languages	German, French, English, Russian, Spanish
Leaders
• Council President	Mark van Loon
• Secretary General	Luigi Guido
Establishment
• Treaty of Sigmaringen signing	22 May 1968
• Treaty in effect	1 November 1968
Website www.europa.eu

The European Community (EC) is a regional organization that aims to promote economic integration, the rule of law, and human rights in Europe. It was founded in 1968, in the aftermath of the Second Great War, initially for the purpose of creating a lasting peace in Europe. As of 2020, it has TBD member states and a total population of TBD million. It has a total GDP of $23.98 trillion, making it the second-largest regional economy in the world after the Conference of American States. The EC has five official working languages, which are French, English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

The Community has established a common market and customs union among certain nations of Western Europe during the 1970s, which originally consisted of Germany, France, Austria, Portugal, Netherlands, Skandinavia, Switzerland, Greece, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It gained a set of common institutions to promote trade, and its main decision-making body is the Council of Europe. It consists of representatives from each member state, with a rotating Presidency. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) was also created as the main legal authority in the organization, helping coordinate law enforcement and settling disputes between states. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the organization was expanded to include other states, which was expanded to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Montenegro, Armenia, Georgia, Finland, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The EC is not a federal structure and cannot make binding laws, although the Council of Europe is permitted to take action to enforce European Court of Justice decisions in certain situations. Member states of the organization maintain their own individual currencies, border controls, defense and foreign policy. The EC has acted upon a unified foreign policy on occasion, and provides a forum for European nations to discuss international issues. Calls for creating a more federal European Community along the lines of the Conference of American States in North America in recent years have not been taken up.

The organization is was established by the Treaty of Sigmaringen that came into effect on 1 November 1968. The EC is also called the Common Market in English-speaking countries.

Members

Flag	State	Accession	Language(s)	Currency	Population (2020)
	Austria
	Belarus
	Bulgaria
	Croatia
	Czech Republic
	Estonia
	France
	Georgia
	Germany
	Greece
	Hungary
	Italy
	Latvia
	Lithuania
	Montenegro
	Netherlands
	Poland
	Portugal
	Romania
	Russia
	Sardinia
	Serbia
	Slovakia
	Slovenia
	Spain
	Ukraine
	United Kingdom

See also

• Conference of American States