same six member countries which formed the EEC and EURATOM.
The three communities the EEC, EURATOM, and the ECSC functioned as separate entities until July 1967. Among the three communities, however, there were some common institutions. The executives of the three communities were merged into a single commission on 1 July 1967. Since that time, the goals and objectives of the three communities have been pursued in a coordinated and cohesive manner, and the wider community has been known as the EC.
There are two major long term goals of the EC. The first is the integration of the economies of the member countries, while the second is political unity among the member countries (The Economist, 1990a, pp. 14 15). The pursuit of economic integration has been both more rapid and more successful than has the pursuit of political unity. Economic integration, however, has also been beset with significant problems (Tully, 1990, pp. 133 134). The economic objectives of the EC are to (1) establish a customs union for member countries, (2) establish an economic union, which includes common transport policies, common external trade policies, the prohibition of agreements or practices which restrict, prevent, or distort fair competition among member countries, and the coordination of financial, commercial,
economic, and social policies, and (3) establish a common agricultural policy.
Membership negotiations began in 1970 between the then six member countries of the EC and Denmark, Ireland, Norway, and the United Kingdom (UK). The four non member countries, on 22 January 1972, signed a Treaty of Accession to the EC. The citizens of Norway, in a referendum, rejected membership in November 1970 (Paradalis, 1987, pp. 271 294). In the early 1980s, Greece was brought into the EC as a full member, and, in 1986, both Portugal and Spain were brought in as full members of the EC.
A new community was formed in the summer of 1978, wh...