On the use of abreviations:
EU - European Union
formerly : EC - European Community
formerly : EEC - European Economic Community.
The name-changes coincide with drastic changes in what the bloc is. The EEC was a purely economic trading bloc, the European Community took things a stage further bringing in more political union and the European Union brings some aspects of federal government to Europe.
the EC and EEC no longer exsist and anyone using "made in the EEC" is just mistranslating or is hopelessly out of date.
EC tends to mean European Commission these days which is one of the organs of Government within the EU.
There is also the EEA, European Economic Area, which is nothing to do with the EU per-se but is a kinda looser co-operating group of countries that includes all of the EU members, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway etc..
and of course the Council of Europe, an entirely seperate organisation which has 45 member states. It was established in 1949 as a direct reaction to WW II and primarily acts as a human rights watchdog and has policies like no member can have a death penalty etc.. It's more like the UN then the EU as it's a relatively loose international organisation.
Aims
The Council was set up to:
• defend human rights, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law,
• develop continent-wide agreements to standardise member countries' social and legal practices,
• promote awareness of a European identity based on shared values and cutting across different cultures
