In popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes used interchangeably with the plural phrase, in the sense of referring to all three entities.

Following its proposal in 1950 in the Schuman Declaration, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany came together to sign the Treaty of Paris in 1951 which established the Community.

[2] The ECSC's aim was to combine the coal and steel industries of its members to create a single market in those resources.

[7] The pillar structure of the EU allowed the areas of European co-operation to be increased without leaders handing a large amount of power to supranational institutions.

The commission, Parliament and Court of Justice are largely cut out of activities in the second and third pillars, with the Council dominating proceedings.

This allowed the new areas to be based on intergovernmentalism (unanimous agreement between governments) rather than majority voting and independent institutions according to supranational democracy.

Maastricht brought in the codecision procedure, which gave it equal legislative power with the Council on Community matters.

Hence, with the greater powers of the supranational institutions and the operation of Qualified Majority Voting in the council, the Communities pillar could be described as a far more federal method of decision making.

The Amsterdam Treaty transferred rule making powers for border controls, immigration, asylum and cooperation in civil and commercial law from the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) pillar to the European Community (JHA was renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC) as a result).

Both Amsterdam and the Treaty of Nice also extended codecision procedure to nearly all policy areas, giving Parliament equal power to the Council in the Community.

The abolition of the pillar structure was proposed already under the European Constitution which ultimately failed to pass the ratification process.

The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.

Prior to 1967, the Common Assembly/European Parliamentary Assembly and the Court of Justice, established by the ECSC, were already shared with the EEC and EAEC, but they had different executives.

In the European Parliament, members are allocated a set number seats related to their population, however these (since 1979) have been directly elected and they sit according to political allegiance, not national origin.