The Euratom Treaty, officially the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, established the European Atomic Energy Community. It was signed on 25 March 1957 at the same time as the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty).
| Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community | |
|---|---|
| Type | Founding treaty |
| Signed | 25 March 1957 |
| Location | Capitoline Hill, Rome, Italy |
| Effective | 1 January 1958 |
| Signatories | (original signatories): Belgium France Italy Luxembourg the Netherlands West Germany |
| Parties | 27[1] (all European Union member states) |
| Depositary | Government of Italy |
| Language | (original): Dutch, German, French and Italian. |
| Languages | all 24[2] official Languages of the European Union |
| Full text | |
 Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community at Wikisource | |
Consolidated (amended) version of the EURATOM treaty (2009) | |
The Euratom Treaty is less well known because of the lower profile of the organisation that it founded. The EEC has evolved into what is now the European Union, but Euratom has remained much the same as it was in 1957 although it is governed by the institutions of the European Union. It was established with its own Commission and Council, but the 1967 Merger Treaty merged these institutions of Euratom and the European Coal and Steel Community with those of the EEC.
The Euratom treaty has seen very little amendment because of later sensitivity surrounding nuclear power in European public opinion. That has caused some to argue that it has become too outdated, particularly in the areas of democratic oversight. It was not included as part of the (unratified) Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which sought to combine all previous treaties, over fears that including nuclear power in the treaty would turn more people against it. Nevertheless, it is one of the active treaties of the European Union.
Background and timeline
editSince the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.
| Legend: S: signing F: entry into force T: termination E: expiry de facto supersession Rel. w/ EC/EU framework: de facto inside outside |
European Union (EU) | [Cont.] | ||||||||||||||||
| European Communities (EC) | (Pillar I) | |||||||||||||||||
| European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) | [Cont.] | |||||||||||||||||
| / / / European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) | ||||||||||||||||||
| European Economic Community (EEC) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Schengen Rules | European Community (EC) | |||||||||||||||||
| 'TREVI' | Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, pillar II) | |||||||||||||||||
| / North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) | [Cont.] | Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC, pillar II) | ||||||||||||||||
| Anglo-French alliance |
[Defence arm handed to NATO] | European Political Co-operation (EPC) | Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, pillar III) | |||||||||||||||
| Western Union (WU) | / Western European Union (WEU) | [Tasks defined following the WEU's 1984 reactivation handed to the EU] | ||||||||||||||||
| [Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE] | [Cont.] | |||||||||||||||||
| Council of Europe (CoE) | ||||||||||||||||||
Entente Cordiale
S: 8 April 1904 |
Davignon report
S: 27 October 1970 |
European Council conclusions
S: 2 December 1975 |
||||||||||||||||
- ^ a b c d e Although not EU treaties per se, these treaties affected the development of the EU defence arm, a main part of the CFSP. The Franco-British alliance established by the Dunkirk Treaty was de facto superseded by WU. The CFSP pillar was bolstered by some of the security structures that had been established within the remit of the 1955 Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT). The Brussels Treaty was terminated in 2011, consequently dissolving the WEU, as the mutual defence clause that the Lisbon Treaty provided for EU was considered to render the WEU superfluous. The EU thus de facto superseded the WEU.
- ^ Plans to establish a European Political Community (EPC) were shelved following the French failure to ratify the Treaty establishing the European Defence Community (EDC). The EPC would have combined the ECSC and the EDC.
- ^ The European Communities obtained common institutions and a shared legal personality (i.e. ability to e.g. sign treaties in their own right).
- ^ The treaties of Maastricht and Rome form the EU's legal basis, and are also referred to as the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), respectively. They are amended by secondary treaties.
- ^ Between the EU's founding in 1993 and consolidation in 2009, the union consisted of three pillars, the first of which were the European Communities. The other two pillars consisted of additional areas of cooperation that had been added to the EU's remit.
- ^ The consolidation meant that the EU inherited the European Communities' legal personality and that the pillar system was abolished, resulting in the EU framework as such covering all policy areas. Executive/legislative power in each area was instead determined by a distribution of competencies between EU institutions and member states. This distribution, as well as treaty provisions for policy areas in which unanimity is required and qualified majority voting is possible, reflects the depth of EU integration as well as the EU's partly supranational and partly intergovernmental nature.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Detailpagina Verdragenbank, Verdrag tot oprichting van de Europese Gemeenschap voor Atoomenergie (EURATOM)". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands) (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 August 2011.
- ^ Article 225 of the Euratom Treaty
External links
edit- Consolidated (amended) Euratom treaty as of 2009.
- Documents of the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community on Eur-Lex
- Treaties overview on EUR-Lex
- Documents of Treaty of Rome's negotiations are at the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence
