Editing European Economic Community (section)

===Background===
[[File:Luxembourg0080.JPG|thumb|The High Authority had more executive powers than the Commission which replaced it.]]
The EEC inherited some of the [[European Coal and Steel Community#Institutions|Institutions of the ECSC]] in that the [[European Parliament|Common Assembly]] and [[European Court of Justice|Court of Justice]] of the ECSC had their authority extended to the EEC and Euratom in the same role. However the EEC, and Euratom, had different executive bodies to the ECSC. In place of the ECSC's Council of Ministers was the [[Council of the European Union|Council of the European Economic Community]], and in place of the [[High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community|High Authority]] was the [[European Commission|Commission of the European Communities]].

There was greater difference between these than name: the French government of the day had grown suspicious of the supranational power of the High Authority and sought to curb its powers in favour of the intergovernmental style Council. Hence the council had a greater executive role in the running of the EEC than was the situation in the ECSC. By virtue of the [[Merger Treaty]] in 1967, the executives of the ECSC and Euratom were merged with that of the EEC, creating a single institutional structure governing the three separate Communities. From here on, the term ''European Communities'' were used for the institutions (for example, from ''Commission of the European Economic Community'' to the ''Commission of the European Communities'').<ref name="ENA Merger">{{Cite web|title=Merging of the executives|publisher=CVCE|url=http://www.cvce.eu/obj/merging_the_executives-en-575850b6-f472-406a-936d-8c08a9e0db32.html|access-date=26 April 2013}}</ref><ref name="ENA Council">{{Cite web|publisher=CVCE|title=Council of the European Union|url=http://www.cvce.eu/obj/the_council_of_the_european_union-en-de23700c-e50a-4e0e-a7de-80665e4caf9f.html|access-date=26 April 2013}}</ref><ref name="ENA Commission">{{Cite web|title=European Commission|publisher=CVCE|url=http://www.cvce.eu/obj/european_commission-en-281a3c0c-839a-48fd-b69c-bc2588c780ec.html|access-date=26 April 2013}}</ref>