In late 2023, the Council of the European Union transferred 23 historical files for the period 1985-1988 concerning the Single European Act to the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence. The archival descriptions of the files are now available for consultation in the HAEU’s database, together with the links to the digital objects.
The Single European Act (SEA) was signed in Luxembourg and The Hague in February 1986. It was the first significant amendment to the founding Treaties of Paris of 1951 and Rome of 1957, which established the European Communities – the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
The SEA entered into force on 1 July 1987 and had a great impact on the institutions of the European Communities, expanding the power of the European Parliament with regard to the accession of new member states and association agreements, for example, and granting greater powers to the Council. The SEA was also significant because it committed member states to a timetable for their economic merger and the creation of a single European currency and common foreign and domestic policies. The European Single Market, the world’s largest trading zone, was eventually established under the SEA in 1992.
Archival holdings from the Council of the European Union
Following the Council Regulation 2015/496 amending the original Archives Regulation 354/83, all EU institutions, bodies and agencies are obliged to deposit their archives at the HAEU in Florence, where they are made available to the public according to the 30 years rule governing access to archives of the European Union.
The HAEU’s holdings on the Council go back to the Special Council of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which met for the first time in 1952.