The European Community (French: Communauté européenne; German: Europäische gemeinschaft; Russian: ; Spanish: Comunidad europeano; Italian: ; Polish: ) is a regional intergovernmental association comprised of every sovereign nation in Europe as well as several "peripherally" European countries, meant to foster dialogue and cooperation among European states. Founded in 1945 following the end of the European Wars, it gradually expanded to include the entire continent as well as Russia, the Caucasus states of Georgia, Armenia, and Chechnya, and Lebanon, its only fully Asian member. The European Community, since her founding, has been headquartered in Vienna. As the world's oldest intergovernmental institution, the European Community was viewed in the second half of the 20th century as an important pillar of the European Pax Francia, despite criticism of it being dominated by French interests and client states more definitively embedded in the Paris-led military Versailles Pact and economic Council of Industrial Countries customs union.
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