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European Union, the European organisation dedicated to increasing economic integration and strengthening cooperation among its member states. The European Union was established on November 1, 1993, when the Treaty on European Union or Maastricht Treaty, was appro ....

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.... separate organisations; the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), created in 1951; the European Economic Community (EEC, often referred to as the Common Market) and the European Atomic Community (Euratom), both set up in 1957. The three institutions merged in 1967, creating the EC and establishing headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The latter proved to be of little importance because each national government kept control of its nuclear programmes. Economically, the EEC treaty legalised, over a twelve-year period, the elimination of trade barriers among member nations, the development of a common tariff for imports from the rest of the world, an ....