Coal, Steel and Rome

The European Union did not begin with a grand plan for a united continent. It began with a proposal about two industrial materials, made by a French government that was worried about Germany. This chapter follows the twelve years from the end of the Second World War to the Treaties of Rome: the reasons Europeans looked for a new kind of cooperation, the Schuman Declaration and the Coal and Steel Community, a defence project that failed, and the treaties that created the common market. Dates and names are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked.

Europe in 1945

In 1945 much of the continent was in ruins, millions had died, and the same two neighbours, France and Germany, had fought three wars in seventy years (1870, 1914 and 1939, check). The old answer to such problems had been alliances and a balance of power, and it had failed twice. Three pressures pushed people towards something new.

• Peace. How could France and Germany be bound together so that another war between them became unthinkable?
• Recovery. American aid under the Marshall Plan from 1948 encouraged European countries to cooperate on how to spend it, and led to a body to coordinate it (check).
• The Cold War. A divided Germany and a threatening Soviet Union made a strong western Europe, with a recovering West Germany inside it, seem urgent.

The Council of Europe: A First Try

In 1949 ten countries founded the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg (check). It was a forum for cooperation on human rights, law and culture, and it produced the European Convention on Human Rights (Chapter 1). It had no power to make binding laws on economic matters, and its limits convinced some people that a more ambitious structure was needed. It is not part of the EU and should not be confused with it.

The Schuman Declaration, 9 May 1950

The turning point came from France. Jean Monnet, a planner and official who had worked on pooling Allied supplies in both world wars (check), drew up a proposal. It was presented by the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, on 9 May 1950, a date now celebrated as Europe Day.

The European Coal and Steel Community

Six countries accepted: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. They signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951, and the Community began work in 1952 (check). The Treaty of Paris was set for fifty years, and it expired in 2002 (check).

• A High Authority. An independent body with power to make binding decisions about coal and steel, led by Monnet as its first president (check). It was the ancestor of today's European Commission, which is covered in European Politics Fundamentals 2.
• An Assembly. Representatives from national parliaments, the ancestor of the European Parliament (European Politics Fundamentals 3).
• A Council of Ministers. Representing the governments (European Politics Fundamentals 4).
• A Court. To settle disputes about the treaty (European Politics Fundamentals 5).

Most of the institutional shape of the later Union is visible here in small. The United Kingdom was invited to take part and declined (check), which began a long history of British distance from the project (Chapter 3).

A Defence Community That Failed

The success of the Coal and Steel Community encouraged a bolder plan. After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the United States pressed for West German rearmament, which alarmed France. The French answer, the Pleven Plan, proposed a European Defence Community, with a joint European army including German units (check). The six signed a treaty in 1952, and the plan was to be accompanied by a political community.

It failed. In August 1954 the French National Assembly refused to ratify the treaty (check). The reasons included fear of rearmament, objection to giving up control of the French army, and disagreement across the political spectrum. The episode shows a pattern that recurs: integration advances when it is practical and limited, and stalls when it touches the core symbols of national sovereignty, such as armies.

Messina and the Treaties of Rome

After the defence failure, supporters returned to economics.

• Messina, 1955. The foreign ministers of the six met in Sicily in June 1955 and agreed to study a wider economic union (check). The British government took part in early discussions and withdrew (check).
• The Spaak Report, 1956. A committee chaired by the Belgian politician Paul-Henri Spaak produced the plan that became the basis of the treaties (check).
• Rome, 25 March 1957. The six signed two treaties: one creating the European Economic Community (EEC) and one creating Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community (check). They came into force on 1 January 1958.

The EEC treaty set out a common market in which goods, people, services and capital would eventually move freely, a customs union with a common external tariff, common policies on agriculture and transport, and a timetable. The 1957 Treaty of Rome is the founding text of what is now the EU, and its descendants still govern the Union (European Politics Fundamentals 1).

Exercises

Next chapter: The Common Market Years: 1958–1986, which follows the new Community through its first crises and enlargements.