European balance of power Austria which continued to rule as Holy Roman Emperor. Hapsburg Austria did directly control some states outside of the Holy Roman Empire. It was France who took the status of dominant continental power from the Habsburgs thanks to the Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of the Pyrenees. In the 16th and 17th centuries, English foreign policy strove to prevent a creation of a single universal monarchy in Europe, which many believed France or Spain might attempt to create. To maintain the balance of power, the English made alliances with other states—including Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and the Netherlands—to counter
Merger Treaty common institutions (prior to this treaty, they already shared a Parliamentary Assembly and Court of Justice) and were together known as the European Communities. This treaty is regarded by some as the real beginning of the modern European Union. This treaty was abrogated by the Amsterdam Treaty signed in 1997: Merger Treaty The Merger Treaty (or Brussels Treaty) was a European treaty which combined the three executive bodies of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC) into a single institutional structure. The treaty was signed in Brussels on 8