Follow this link and see the box on the right:
For the first time in the WTO, the name “European Union” was used in the 1 December 2009 working session at the Geneva Ministerial Conference. This was the result of the Lisbon Treaty taking effect.
Before that, for legal reasons the European Union was known officially in the WTO as the European Communities and that name will continue to be found in older documents.
At long last, we trade law people will not have to explain why we refer to the "European Communities," when everyone else says "European Union." Of course, the change is not retroactive, so we will still have to explain why all the old documents say "European Communities." Sigh.
