The "Treaty establishing the European Community", known as the "Treaty of Rome" (originally called the "Treaty establishing the European Economic Community" and renamed the "Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union" in December 2009), was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands at the Conservators' Palace in Rome. It entered into force on 1 January 1958. Two other treaties were concluded at the same time, the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, which created EURATOM, and the Agreement on common institutions for the European Communities, which stipulated that the European Economic Community (EEC), the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) would have a common parliamentary assembly (now the European Parliament), a common European Court of Justice and a common Economic and Social Committee. On 5 May 2006, EU Commissioner Joaquín Almunia and Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker announced the first commemorative transnational €2 coin to mark the 50th anniversary of the "Treaty of Rome" (not to be confused with the Treaty of Rome, 1924). The mint directors of the Italian Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, the Spanish mint Real Casa de la Moneda and the Austrian Mint met in Vienna to brainstorm. The engraver Helmut Andexlinger was commissioned to combine the presented implementation ideas into a "joint design", and after design approval he produced the model of the coin. It depicts the treaty with the signatures of the representatives of the six founding states, framed by the pavement pattern of Capitol Square in Rome, the place of the signing, designed by Michelangelo. |