European Atomic Energy Community into force. To save on resources, these separate executives created by the Rome Treaties were merged in 1965 by the Merger Treaty. The institutions of the EEC would take over responsibilities for the running of the EEC and Euratom, with all three then becoming known as the European Communities even if each legally existed separately. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty created the European Union, which absorbed the Communities into the European Community pillar, yet Euratom still maintained a distinct legal personality. The European Constitution was intended to consolidate all previous treaties and increase democratic accountability in them. The Euratom treaty
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union the drafters of the EEC Treaty wished to eschew any implicitly political elements. However, the idea that the purely economic end of the new EEC Treaty would be unlikely to have any implications for fundamental rights was soon to be tested. Soon after the entry into force of the EEC Treaty, the Community established itself as a major political entity with policy ramifications beyond its economic aims. In 1964, the European Court of Justice handed down its decision in "Costa v ENEL", in which the Court decided that Union law should take precedence over conflicting national law. This meant that