THIRD GROUP: EUROPEAN UNIONThe thir

THIRD GROUP: EUROPEAN UNION
The third group of European organisations comprises the European Union.
The feature that is completely new in the EU and distinguishes it from the
usual type of international association of states is that the Member States
have ceded some of their sovereign rights to the EU and have conferred on
the Union powers to act independently. In exercising these powers, the EU
is able to issue sovereign acts which have the same force as laws in individual
states.
The foundation stone of the European Union was laid by the then French
Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in his declaration of 9 May 1950, in
which he put forward the plan he had worked out with Jean Monnet to
bring Europe’s coal and steel industries together to form a European Coal
and Steel Community. This would, he declared, constitute a historic initiative
for an ‘organised and vital Europe’, which was ‘indispensable for
civilisation’ and without which the ‘peace of the world could not be maintained’.
The ‘Schuman Plan’ finally became a reality with the conclusion of
the founding Treaty of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)
by the six founding States (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg
and the Netherlands) on 18 April 1951 in Paris (Treaty of Paris) and its entry
into force on 23 July 1952. This Community was established for a period