EPTMerger and Expansion
The ECSC goes into effect in 1952 and several of the governments involved wanted to extend the cooperation. While the first years was filled with defense treaties and unions, most notably Western European Union (1948-2007 after more or less conceding control to EU) and European Defense Union (never made it through the french parliament 1954), the countries wanted more. In 1957 a new treaty was build on top of the ECSC. The Rome Treaty gave birth to European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). EEC was a heavy extension of the economic cooperation from only dealing with coal and steel to now include all economic areas. Economic and Social Committee (ESC), common agricultural policy (CAP), European Monetary Agreement and European Investment Bank (EIB) is put down in 1959 to support the economic cooperation.
Meanwhile United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal set up European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) in 1960.
As a collective EFTA and EEC are seen as the predecessors to the inner market.
In the sixties a lot of smaller changes happen around the cooperation. France steps out of the council in protest against the common agricultural policy in 1964, but is back again after 7 months. It is also France and specifically De Gaule who wants to keep out United Kingdom in the 1960s. De Gaule found Great Britain to have a “deep-seated hostility” towards European construction and even though the five other countries in the union welcomed the British application, the fear of creating instability in the community prevented United Kingdom from joining in 1963 and 1967 where they applied!
In 1967 the EEC, EURATOM and ECSC officially merged to be governed by a commission (swallowing the high authority in ECSC) and a single council by the Brussels treaty aka. “The merger treaty”.
After having run their heads against the wall of EEC several times during the 1960s, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom and Ireland are finally accepted officially into the community after De Gaule lost the french election in 1969. Ireland, Denmark and Norway hold referendums on accession and while the people of Ireland votes yes (83 %) and Denmark votes yes (63 %), Norway votes no (53 %) and Norway was therefore forced to withdraw. United Kingdom joins without referendums in 1973 but holds a 1975 vote on staying in the community, which passes (67 % for). It is the first large accession into EEC!
Also in 1975, a change in the decision making process is made to avoid having a single nation veto progress. It also establish a Court of Auditors to watch the economy of the cooperation.
After having talked about it for years the countries agree to a direct vote for the European Parliament. The agreement comes into effect in 1978 and 1979 the first direct election occur!
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/27/newsid_4187000/4187714.stm
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:11965F/TXT:EN:NOT (original treaty of the merger 1965, not available in English)
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/institutional_affairs/treaties/treaties_ecsc_en.htm (short summary of treaties including the merger Treaty (1965) and the 1975 establishment of Court of Auditors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/newsid_2499000/2499297.stm
http://irishpoliticalmaps.blogspot.dk/2011/07/referendum-1972-accession-to-european.html
http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/d/denmark/denmark-european-communities-membership-referendum-1972.html
http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/n/norway/norway-european-community-referendum-1972.html
