treaty and other European legislation, as well as by inventing doctrines whole-
sale. What is remarkable is that there has been very little effective resistance to
this by national courts, without whose co-operation little could have been
done.
European Union
The European Union (EU) is the most recent name of an organization of
Western European states. It started life as the European Economic Community
(EEC) in 1957. From there it became the European Community in 1967. The
differences between the two older stages and the new EU are considerable, and
they grow continually through a series of treaties replacing or adding to the
agreements contained in the original 1957 Treaty of Rome. The first step was
the ratification in 1987 of the Single European Act creating, by 1992, a ‘single
European market’. This act modified the extent to which single countries
could veto European legislation; increased marginally the powers of the
European Parliament; increased regional aid; and adopted measures of social
policy through the ‘Social Charter’, which came into effect in the 1990s. The
next step was the greatest yet taken, when the member states ratified the
Maastricht Treaty of 1993, which also brought about the name change.
Although Maastricht entailed many things, including the inception of a move
towards common foreign-affairs and military policy, it is famous above all for
launching monetary union.
EMU (economic and monetary union) was the move that finally trans-
formed the European Communities into something previously unknown in
world history. The member states gave up independent control of monetary
policy, and indeed stopped having their own monetary system at all, putting
total control into the hands of a politically independent European Central
Bank: 1999 saw the onset of the single European currency and the end of
national monetary policy for those members able and willing to meet stringent
economic criteria. Some countries wished to join and failed to meet the
conditions, while the UK, probably capable of meeting the conditions, refused
to join. By 2002 the last vestiges of independent European national monetary
systems had gone when national currency units were all replaced by the ‘euro’.
By contrast, the next phase after Maastricht, the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam,
was less dramatic but still vitally important. This treaty further developed the
institutions of the Union in order to increase democratic accountability and
reduce the possibility of individual states going their own way. The great
problem for the EU in the 21st century is one of growth. There is considerable
pressure to allow the countries of the democratic transition in Eastern Europe
to join, but apart from the notable difference in their economies, there is
obviously a serious question as to whether the spectacular success of the EU in
European Union