A common market for coal, iron ore and scrap reportedly opened in europe in 1953. The founding treaty of the european economic community, the treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. Delays in printing was said to have resulted in members signing a document which included blank pages. The treaty established the european coal and steel community, ecsc; a tariff free customs union and single market for free movement of goods, labour, services and capital; the creation of a common agricultural policy, a european social fund and a commission.
The ecsc reportedly resulted from a Franco German innitiative. France is believed to have had saxon german influences in government, some possibly wrongly typecast. May have lead to the targeting of republican values.
France, west Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands began negotiating the treaty. A proposal for common european defence was not agreed upon by french president Jean Monet. Following this according to a report an unnamed leading figure resigned and began work on alternative communities.
Reportedly, the potential for nuclear energy was explored to extend the powers of the ecsc as a result of the trend towards gas and oil. Resulted in the euratom treaty and as called european atomic energy community. Though reported to have the same membership, the eaec is said to be legally distinct from the eu. Under terms of the eu-uk trade and cooperation agreement post brexit Britain has continued to participate as an associated state.
As a result of the maastricht treaty of 1992, the eec reportedly became the european community embedded into the european union along with a common foreign and security policy and europe wide police and judicial cooperation. In practice not thought to have always been fair and workable, as in the case of Julian Assange.