Regional Political Blocs and Alliances

The most institutionally deep of the world's regional blocs is the European Union, whose origins trace to French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman's declaration of May 9, 1950 (drafted with civil servant Jean Monnet), proposing that French and German coal and steel production be pooled under a common authority to make war between the two nations "not merely unthinkable but materially impossible." This led to the 1951 Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community among France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, and then to the 1957 Treaty of Rome creating the European Economic Community, which progressively built a common market, a customs union, and shared agricultural and competition policy. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty formally created the European Union and laid the groundwork for a single currency, the euro, introduced for financial transactions in 1999 and as physical cash in 2002 across an initial group of countries later known as the eurozone. Successive enlargements brought the EU from 6 founding members to 28 by 2013; the United Kingdom's withdrawal, confirmed by the 2016 Brexit referendum and completed on January 31, 2020, left the Union at 27 member states, coordinated through the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of the European Union, and European Council.