The European Communities are regional international organizations who have the characteristic to have common institutions:

• the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which ceased existing in 2002,

• the European Economic community (the EEC)
• the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

These three European Communities were amalgamated by the Treaty Merger of 1965.

The European Communities currently form one of the three pillars of the European Union. The two other pillars are the foreign Politics and of common safety (PESC), as well as the police and legal co-operation out of penal matter.

The European Communities are members in particular of OECD and OMC.

Chronology of the European Union