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The European Economic Community (EEC) was an international organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957. Upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the EC's institutions were absorbed into the EU's wider framework and the community ceased to exist.
The Community's aim was to bring about economic integration, including a common market, among its six founding members: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. It gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty (Treaty of Brussels).
Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the EEC was renamed the European Community (EC) to reflect that it covered a wider range of policy. This was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union (EU), which the treaty also founded. The EC existed in this form until it was abolished by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, which incorporated the EC's institutions into the EU's wider framework and provided that the EU would "replace and succeed the European Community".