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The European Union For centuries, Europe was the scene of frequent and bloody wars. In the period 1870 to 1945, France and Germany fought each other three times, with terrible loss of life. A number of European leaders became convinced that the only way to secure a lasting peace between their countries was to unite them economically and politically. After the Second World war Europe recognised the need for the rebuilding of nations in order to maintain long-term peace and prosperity. After a number of false starts the birth of what is now the European Union took place at a press conference in 1950. The French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed integrating the coal and steel industries of Western Europe. As a result, in 1951, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was set up, with six members: Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The ECSC was such a success that, within a few years, these same six countries decided to go further and integrate other sectors of their economies. In 1957 they signed the Treaties of Rome, creating the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Economic Community (EEC). The member states set about removing trade barriers between them and forming a "common market". At this stage Britain had opted out of joining the EU for different political issues such as the importance of its commercial, political and, even, sentimental bonds with its colonies and former-colonies, most of them integrated in the Commonwealth. In 1957 Britain decided to pursue the idea of a wider but looser free trade area and became a founding member, in 1960, of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), whose goal was free trade rather than economic and political integration. EFTA helped to cut tariffs, but achieved relatively little in the long term, mainly because several of its members did more trade with the EEC than with their EFTA partners.
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