Convention on the association of the Netherlands Antilles with the European Economic Community of the Netherlands, proclaimed in 1954, instituted a Kingdom in which the three parties—the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Suriname—participated on basis of equality, the Netherlands in 1957 only negotiated the Treaties of Rome on behalf of itself. A special protocol attached to both the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Economic Energy Community specifically declared that the Kingdom was entitled to ratify the treaties for the Netherlands and Netherlands New Guinea only, or for the Kingdom as a whole. Both treaties were indeed subsequently ratified for the Netherlands and Netherlands New Guinea
European Economic Community the European Economic Area covering 15 countries. Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the EEC was renamed the "European Community" to reflect that it covered a wider range than economic policy. This was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union, which the treaty also founded. The EC existed in this form until it was abolished by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, which incorporated the EC's institutions into the EU's wider framework and provided that the EU would "replace