The European Atomic Energy Community, or EURATOM, is an international organization composed of the members of the European Union. It was established on March 25, 1957, by a second treaty of Rome, signed the same day as the more famous Treaty of Rome, instituting the European Economic Community (EEC). The European Atomic Energy Community is a separate entity, but membership and organization is fully integrated with the European Union. The organisational structures of EURATOM and EEC (together with the now defunct European Coal and Steel Community), have merged in 1967, by virtue of the Merger Treaty (signed in 1965).
The EuratomTreaty introduces an extremely comprehensive and strict system of safeguards to ensure that civil nuclear materials are not diverted from the civil use declared by the Member States.
The institutional structure of the EuratomTreaty is broadly similar to that of the EEC Treaty and is built around the same "institutional triangle" (Council, Commission and European Parliament).
Despite the adoption of the Constitutional Treaty, the EuratomTreaty remains in force.
Furthermore in 2002 the ECSC ceased to exist with the expiration of the Treaty of Paris which established it.
The EEC was the most significant of the three treaty organizations that were consolidated in 1967 to form the European Community (EC; known since the ratification 1993 of the Maastricht treaty as the European Union, EU).
It was for a time proposed that the European Constitution should repeal the Euratomtreaty, in order to terminate the legal personality of Euratom at the same time as that of the European Community, but this was not included in the final version.
Feeds |
Contact