"Italy: Convention on the association of the Netherlands Antilles with the European Economic Community The Convention on the association of the Netherlands Antilles with the European Economic Community is an international agreement amending the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, with the aim of awarding OCT status to the Netherlands Antilles, which was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1954 until 2010. A full treaty revision was needed because Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Luxembourg wanted to add a protocol on the import of refined petroleum products from the Netherlands Antilles. Because the Charter for the"
"1957 by the six founding members: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. It entered into force on 1 January 1958. A rapid reaction measure which can be invoked by a Member State whenever a new member state would fail to live up to its obligations in the areas of the internal market or justice and home affairs. The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the Treaty of Rome, and aimed at creating the Single European Market by 31 December 1992. The Stuttgart Declaration was the solemn declaration calling for the creation of the"
"a compromise was reached with the Luxembourg compromise on 29 January 1966 whereby a gentlemen's agreement permitted members to use a veto on areas of national interest. On 24 September 1963 the members reached an agreement on merging the executive bodies of the three Communities. A year later it is agreed the single ""Commission"" would have nine members: two from each of the larger states, France, Germany and Italy, and one from each of the smaller Benelux states: Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. The Merger Treaty was signed on 8 April 1965 and entered into force on 1 July 1967 merging"
"six nations decided to go further and created the European Coal and Steel Community, which was declared to be ""a first step in the federation of Europe"". Visionary men such as Alcide De Gasperi from Italy, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman from France, and Paul-Henri Spaak from Belgium understood that coal and steel were the two industries essential for waging war, and that by tying their national industries together, future war between their nations was made impossible. These men and others are officially credited as the founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,"
"Benelux The Benelux Union (; ; ) is a politico-economic union of three neighbouring states in western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name ""Benelux"" is formed from joining the first two or three letters of each country's name – Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg – and was first used to name the customs agreement that initiated the union (signed in 1944). It is now used more generally to refer to the geographic, economic and cultural grouping of the three countries. In 1951, these countries joined West Germany, France, and Italy to form the European Coal and Steel Community, a predecessor"
"and in 1949 it became a founding member of NATO. In 1951, Luxembourg became one of the six founding countries of the European Coal and Steel Community, which in 1957 would become the European Economic Community and in 1993 the European Union. In 1999 Luxembourg joined the Eurozone. In 2005, a referendum on the EU treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was held. The steel industry exploiting the Red Lands' rich iron-ore grounds in the beginning of the 20th century drove the country's industrialisation. After the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s, the country focused on establishing itself"
"the customs union proceeded much faster than the twelve years planned. However, France faced some setbacks due to their war with Algeria. The six states that founded the EEC and the other two Communities were known as the ""inner six"" (the ""outer seven"" were those countries who formed the European Free Trade Association). The six were France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The first enlargement was in 1973, with the accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Greece, Spain and Portugal joined in the 1980s. The former East Germany became part"
"gained importance at the end of the 1960s. Thirty-five years later, one-third of the tax proceeds originated from that sector. The harmonisation of the tax system across Europe could, however, seriously undermine the financial situation of the grand duchy. Luxembourg has been one of the strongest advocates of the European Union in the tradition of Robert Schuman. In 1957, Luxembourg became one of the six founding countries of the European Economic Community (later the European Union) and in 1999 it joined the euro currency area. Encouraged by the contacts established with the Dutch and Belgian governments in exile, Luxembourg pursued"
"France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland and which, for practical purposes, had disintegrated following the First World War, figured prominently in the minds of policy makers. A first attempt to create an economic and monetary union between the members of the European Economic Community goes back to an initiative by the European Commission in 1969, which set out the need for ""greater co-ordination of economic policies and monetary cooperation."" This was followed up at a meeting of the European Council at The Hague in December 1969. The European Council tasked Pierre Werner, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, with finding a way to"
"helped deal with these problems at two conferences of foreign ministers, one from 26 to 27 January 1957 and another on 4 February. On 25 March 1957, the six countries Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and Netherlands signed the Treaties of Rome. Adenauer and Hallstein signed for Germany. The foreign minister, Brentano had largely left the negotiations to Hallstein, so the signing of the treaty represented a major success for Hallstein. It was also Hallstein who explained the treaties to the German parliament on 21 March 1957, before they were signed on 25 March 1957. There had been previous suggestions"
"capable of coordinating European steel production. The French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community in 1950: soon, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg agreed to the ""Schuman Plan"". For Luxembourg, the stakes were high, as steel was vital to its economy. The Schuman Plan would allow it to export its products to Germany and France, and grant it free access to the raw materials it required. At the same time, there was some nervousness at transferring sovereign rights to a supranational institution: it would mean transferring control over a central part"
"senior ERP official. Six European nations, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands took a step toward economic integration with the formation of a common market of coal and steel. They formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. The idea was to stream-line coal and steel production. A side-benefit would be economic interdependence. Thereby, there would be less risk of Economic warfare or even a shooting war between the member nations. The decades from the 1960s saw an economic decline in the output of the more developed nations of Europe, particularly in France and the UK. These"
"cultural and logistical grounds. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was proposed by Robert Schuman in his declaration on 9 May 1950 and involved the pooling of the coal and steel industries of France and West Germany. Half of the project states, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, had already achieved a great degree of integration amongst themselves with the organs of Benelux and earlier bilateral agreements. These five countries were joined by Italy and they all signed the Treaty of Paris on 23 July 1952. These six members, dubbed the 'inner six' (as opposed to the 'outer seven' who"
"European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957. Upon the formation of the European Union (EU) in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community (EC). In 2009 the EC's institutions were absorbed into the EU's wider framework and the community ceased to exist. The Community's initial aim was to bring about economic integration, including a common market and customs union, among its six founding members: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands"
"The Finabel coordination committee is a land forces organisation comprising 21 Member states of the European Union with a view to promote interoperability between the land forces of its Member states. Membership is open to all of the Member states of the European Union The organisation was founded in October 1953 under the acronym FINBEL by the Army Chiefs of Staff of France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, and then became FINABEL with the arrival of Germany (Allemagne) in 1956, shortly after West Germany was rearmed in 1955. Later, the name has been kept as a proper noun, written"
"the Low Countries region: The Benelux is an economic and political union between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. On 5 September 1944, a treaty establishing the Benelux Customs Union was signed. It entered into force in 1948, and ceased to exist on 1 November 1960, when it was replaced by the Benelux Economic Union after a treaty signed in The Hague on 3 February 1958. A Benelux Parliament was created in 1955. The Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) can be seen as a forerunner of the Benelux. BLEU was created by the treaty signed on 25 July 1921. It established a"
"of the national veto beyond what was foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. It originated from the ""empty chair crisis"" instigated by President De Gaulle, and its effect was that Qualified Majority Voting was used far less often and Unanimity became the norm. The Luxembourg European Council in December 1997 authorised accession negotiations with six candidate countries: Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. These countries are therefore known as the ""Luxembourg six"". The Merger Treaty, signed in Brussels on 8 April 1965 and in force from 1 July 1967, provided for a single Commission and a single"
"Benelux memorandum The Benelux memorandum of 1955 was a document drafted by the three Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) on 18 May 1955 as a means to reviving European integration on the basis of a general common market. The failure of the European Defence Community (EDC) and the European Political Community, brought the process of European integration to a standstill in 1954. At that moment Johan Willem Beyen (Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs) took the initiative to revive an idea, based on the Ouchy Convention of 1932, he had already put forward in December 1952 and February 1953 for"
"record travellers' entries and exits from the Schengen Area. On 25 March 1957, the Treaty of Rome was completed. On 3 February 1958, the economic union of the Benelux countries was formed. Both agreements aimed to enable the free movement of people and goods across national borders. The Benelux countries, as a smaller group, were able to quickly implement the agreement. The European Communities' focus was on economic integration. It was not until the agreement of Saarbrücken was completed on 13 July 1984, that border controls between France and Germany were eased. On 14 June 1985, France, Germany and three"
"and North America. On April 4, 1949, the foreign minister of Belgium joined with representatives from Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States in signing the treaty forming NATO. Greece and Turkey became members in 1952, West Germany joined the alliance in 1955, and Spain became a member in 1982. The treaty established NATO as a multilateral political alliance that binds its members to obligations of mutual defense and economic cooperation. During the Cold War, Belgium's major NATO roles included: (1) participating in the defense of the central European region by air-land"
"in London, and entered into force in 1947. In 1952, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Norway (Finland joined in 1955) established the Nordic Council, an interparliamentary organization with the goal to forge the regional Nordic co-operation. The Nordic Council's statutes set out in the 1962 Helsinki Agreement, according to which the parties undertake ""to seek to preserve and further develop co-operation between our nations in the legal, cultural and financial areas as well as in matters relating to transport and protection of the environment"". In the 1951 Treaty of Paris, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands established the"
"take place at the 1957 signing of the Treaty of Rome by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, one of the most important treaties of the modern day European Union. The letter was written by the fictional journalist Adriana's brother who was killed during the critical WWII 1944 battle in the port town of Anzio, Italy that ""turned the German flank and opened the road to Rome"" but took the lives of 28,000 Allied soldiers. Her brother had been moved by the story of a little girl British soldiers found alone and crying on the beach -"
"referred to as an ""Interparliamentary Consultative Council"") was created in 1955. This parliamentary assembly is composed of 21 members of the Dutch parliament, 21 members of the Belgian national and regional parliaments, and 7 members of the Luxembourg parliament. In 1944, exiled representatives of the three countries signed the London Customs Convention, the treaty that established the Benelux Customs Union. Ratified in 1947, the treaty was in force from 1948 until it was superseded by the Benelux Economic Union. The treaty establishing the Benelux Economic Union (""Benelux Economische Unie/Union Économique Benelux"") was signed on 3 February 1958 in The Hague"
"economic fields. Dependency on overseas oil and the steady exhaustion of coal deposits led to the idea of an atomic energy community (a separate Community was favoured by Monnet, rather than simply extending the powers of the ECSC as suggested by the Common Assembly). However, the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and Germany desired a common market (though opposed by France and Monnet). In order to reconcile the two ideas, both communities would be created. Thus, the six went on to sign the Treaties of Rome in 1957, establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy"
"were still in place at the border between most member states. Disagreement between member states led to an impasse on the abolition of border controls within the Community, but in 1985 five of the then ten member states, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany, signed an agreement on the gradual abolition of common border controls. The agreement was signed on the river-boat ""Princess Marie-Astrid"" on the river Moselle near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, where the territories of France, Germany and Luxembourg meet. Three of the signatories Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already abolished common border controls"
"governed by a 'High Authority', checked by bodies representing governments, Members of Parliament and an independent judiciary. The ECSC was superseded, on 25 March 1957, by the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (which would, in 1993, become the European Union through the Maastricht Treaty). The trigger for the collapse of the Fourth Republic was the Algiers crisis of 1958. France was still a colonial power, although conflict and revolt had begun the process of decolonization. French West Africa, French Indochina, and French Algeria still sent representatives to the French parliament under systems of limited suffrage in"
"from Korea in 1955. On September 5, 1944, the Benelux Customs Union was created. It entered into force in 1948, and ceased to exist on 1 November 1960, when it was replaced by the Benelux Economic Union after a treaty signed in The Hague on February 3, 1958. The Benelux Parliament was created in 1955. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement, which Belgium became an official member of on April 4, 1949. The headquarters of NATO are located in"
"treaty expired. The European Community was dissolved into the European Union by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009; with the EU becoming the legal successor to the Community. Euratom remained an entity distinct from the EU, but is governed by the same institutions. The ECSC was created first. Following its proposal in 1950 in the Schuman Declaration, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany came together to sign the Treaty of Paris in 1951 which established the Community. The success of this Community led to the desire to create more, but attempts at creating a European Defence Community"
"Authority of the ECSC. These governed the three Communities till the establishment of the European Union in 1993. The three Communities shared the same membership, the six states that signed the Treaty of Paris and subsequent treaties were known as the ""Inner Six"" (the ""outer seven"" were those countries who formed the European Free Trade Association). The six founding countries were France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The first enlargement was in 1973, with the accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Greece, Spain and Portugal joined in the 1980s. Following"
"respect the detailed rules and procedures outlined by this association agreement (Council Decision 2013/755/EU). OCTA members are entitled to ask for EU financial support. When the Rome Treaty was signed in March 1957, a total of 15 OCTs existed: French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Comoros Archipelago, French Madagascar, French Somaliland, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, French Togoland, French Cameroons, Belgian Congo, Ruanda-Urundi, Trust Territory of Somalia, Netherlands New Guinea. The list was since then revised multiple times, and comprised—as noted by the Lisbon Treaty—25 OCTs in 2007. One of the French"
"Britain was invited, its Labour government, then preparing for a re-election fight, did not join the initiative. ECSC was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by France, Italy, West Germany and the three Benelux states: Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Among these states the ECSC would remove trade barriers and create a common market for coal and steel. The ECSC was governed by a 'High Authority', checked by bodies representing governments, Members of Parliament and an independent judiciary. See Foreign relations of France, which covers 1981 to the present. The May 1958 seizure of power in"
"sovereignty would complicate the full implementation of the organisation’s founding mission. The first European plan for a harmonised air traffic control (ATC) system, proposed in 1962, was beset by the refusal of both France and Britain to comply, largely due to reasons closely linked with their national military airspace control. The other four original members (the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) agreed in 1964 to set up a single international air traffic control centre to manage their upper airspace, settling in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The European Parliament at the time expressed concern about the"
"the franc's wide circulation. Following independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the new Kingdom of Belgium in 1832 adopted its own Belgian franc, equivalent to the French one, followed by Luxembourg adopting the Luxembourgish franc in 1848 and Switzerland in 1850. Newly unified Italy adopted the lira on a similar basis in 1862. In 1865, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy created the Latin Monetary Union (to be joined by Spain and Greece in 1868): each would possess a national currency unit (franc, lira, peseta, drachma) worth 4.5 g of silver or of gold (fine), all freely exchangeable at a"