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The Eurogroup was established in 1968 as an informal grouping of European governments within the NATO framework. The founding members were Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Portugal joined in 1976 and Spain in 1982. In 1992 France and Iceland (observer) were the only European members of the Alliance who were not full members of the Eurogroup. Its main aim was to ''strengthen the whole Alliance by seeking to ensure that the European contribution to the common defence is as strong and cohesive as possible''. The Eurogroup met twice a year at Ministerial level. It established a number of working groups to foster greater cooperation at a practical level. These were EUROCOM (communications), EUROLOG (logistics), EUROLONGTERM (concepts), EUROMED (military medicine) and EURO/NATO Training. The Eurogroup also developed important publicity activities aimed at explaining the European defence effort to North American audiences (a function performed afterwards in WEU by the Transatlantic Forum). In view of the diversity of the activities of the sub-groups of the Eurogroup in NATO, they were transferred to WEU on a case-by-case basis as working groups. The formal transfer of EUROCOM, EUROLOG and EUROLONGTERM was effected in 1993-1994, step by step, based on decisions approved by the WEU Council following earlier decisions by the Defence Ministers of the Eurogroup nations (CM(93)27). The three sub-groups transferred to WEU became later known collectively as the ''Eurogroups''. The transfer of EUROCOM, EUROLOG (known as the Western European Logistics Group - WELG) and EUROLONGTERM (ELT) was completed as follows: - EUROCOM - with effect from August 1993; - WELG and ELT - with effect from January 1994. The original aim of the transfer was to enable the WEU to assume responsibility for these groups without changing related policies or established rules. In parallel to the transfer of the three sub-groups of the NATO Eurogroup to WEU and in the context of the declaration agreed by WEU Ministers in Maastricht in 1991, which called for further examination of the possibilities of enhanced cooperation in the field of armaments with the aim of creating a European armaments agency, the Defence ministers of the Independent European Programme Group (IEPG) decided to transfer their grouping and its functions to WEU. This decision led to the creation in the WEU framework of the WEAG with 13 full members. After the transfer to WEU the Eurogroups (like WEAG and the Transatlantic forum) retained chairmanship arrangements diverging from the normal WEU six-monthly presidency. A secretariat was established at the WEU headquarters from which these archives were collected after the downsizing of the organisation.

Original in English and French signed in Paris on 16th December 1961, originals of ratification documents from Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and Denmark and full powers documents from Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.