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These treaties have since come together under the Merger Treaty of 1965 giving them a single institutional structure. The main one is the EEC, now called the European Community. Originally there were 6 Member States, a figure that has now expanded to 25 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta).

The recent enlargement of the European Union, was the biggest single event to occur to it since the Treaty of Rome was ratified in 1957. Enlargement meant that 10 new first wave countries joined the Union on 1st May 2004  (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovak Republic and Slovenia). Two other countries hope to join in 2007, Bulgaria and Romania, while Turkey hopes to commence negotiations on its bid to become a member in the near future.

The name European Union (EU) was created by the Maastricht Treaty coming into force in 1993. This amended each of the three existing treaties, increasing their powers and it also outlined further activities that the Member States could undertake and provided an overarching term for the variety of functions within the EU.