A brief history of the EU and its predecessers

1951 Treaty establishing European Coal and Steel Community (flag righte).

1957 Treaties of Rome established Euratom, to create the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty), bringing together France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in a community whose aim is to achieve integration through trade and economic links.

1965 Merger Treaty creates single commission and council for three communities.

1986 The Single European Act revises the Treaties of Rome to add new momentum to European integration and to complete the EU internal market.

1992 The Treaty on European Union, known as the Maastricht treaty, promotes political integration and introduces an EU common foreign and security policy and police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters. Establishes framework for economic and monetary union and the single currency.

1999 Treaty of Amsterdam increases co-decision powers of the European Parliament and introduces the High Representative for Foreign Policy to co-ordinate the EU's external representation.

2001 Treaty of Nice makes series of institutional changes meant to prepare the EU for the big-bang enlargement in 2004 when 10 new member states joined the Union. It was rejected by Irish voters in 2001 in a referendum and approved in 2002 with a protocol safeguarding neutrality.

2004 EU constitution, signed in Rome in 2004 but rejected by French and Dutch voters in referendums in May/June 2005 sparking a crisis of confidence in the EU.

2007 Lisbon Treaty signed by all 27 EU heads of state in December 2007. They want it ratified by the end of this year. Ireland is the only state to vote by referendum.

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