An economic organization established in 1958 to reduce tariff barriers and promote trade among western European countries, including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and West Germany. The United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark joined in 1973, Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, and Austria, Finland, and Sweden in 1995. later European Community (EC) known as the Common Market Association of European countries designed to promote European economic unity. It was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 to develop the economies of the member states into a single common market and to build a political union of the states of western Europe. The EEC also sought to establish a single commercial policy toward nonmember countries, to coordinate transportation systems, agricultural policies, and general economic policies, to remove measures restricting free competition, and to assure the mobility of labour, capital, and entrepreneurship among member states. The liberalized trade policies it sponsored from the 1950s were highly successful in increasing trade and economic prosperity in western Europe. In 1967 its governing bodies were merged into the European Community. In 1993 the EEC was renamed the European Community (EC); it is now the principal organization within the European Union