Common Market Championships

In 1966 the Belgian André Lamaitre had the idea of founding an institution to organize sports events for bridge players and countries belonging to the European Economic Community and he became promoter of it.
On July 31, 1966 was born the European Union Bridge League, which brought together Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands. In subsequent years joined the EUBL the Principality of Monaco, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark and, finally, Luxembourg, so that, in 1980, 11 countries was members of EUBL.
Between 1967 and 1998 the EUBL organized a series of championships to be reserved for teams and pairs of the member countries, with biennial odd years gave very prestigious titles to add own palamares.
In addition, the EUBL decided to award a Challenge Cup the country that the best result overall achievement in various disciplines contended by the Championships. Italy won it 10 times out of 16 editions!
In 1988 Venice was approved a new charter of the organization with the opportunity and took the name of the European Community Bridge League (ECBL) and the decision was made to transfer the Championships to the even-numbered years, a little for budgetary reasons, and a bit to alternate it with the European Championships organized by the EBL.
After the 1998 edition, due to the proliferation of European Union countries, the event was interrupted by the difficulties encountered to distinguish it clearly from the corresponding EBL Championships.