European Coal and Steel Community (1951): First Step to the EU

The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was created by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 18 April 1951 by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. It placed the six countries’ coal and steel industries under a common supranational High Authority, turning the raw materials of war into a shared project. The ECSC was the first of the European Communities and the direct ancestor of today’s European Union.

Origins: from the Schuman Plan to the treaty

The idea came from the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, in which French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposed pooling French and West German coal and steel under an independent authority open to other countries. The plan had been drafted by Jean Monnet, head of France’s planning office, and aimed both to prevent another Franco-German war and to secure European economic recovery.

Six countries accepted the principle of a supranational authority. Britain, whose Labour government had recently nationalised coal and steel, declined. Negotiations began in Paris on 20 June 1950 under Monnet’s chairmanship.

The talks were difficult. The Netherlands and Belgium insisted on a Council of Ministers to balance the High Authority’s power. The United States, through its High Commissioner in Germany John McCloy, pressed for the break-up of the German coal and steel cartels and conglomerates, which German industry resisted. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 also raised demand for steel and made rearmament, including German rearmament, a pressing issue.

The Treaty of Paris

The treaty was signed in Paris on 18 April 1951. Signatories included Konrad Adenauer for West Germany, Robert Schuman for France, Carlo Sforza for Italy, Paul van Zeeland and Joseph Meurice for Belgium, Joseph Bech for Luxembourg, and Dirk Stikker and Jan van den Brink for the Netherlands. After ratification by all six parliaments it entered into force on 23 July 1952, for a fixed term of 50 years.

The treaty abolished customs duties and quantitative restrictions on coal and steel trade among the members, banned discrimination and subsidies, and gave the High Authority powers over prices, investment, competition and production in times of crisis.

How the ECSC worked

The Community had four main institutions, a structure later copied by the European Economic Community:

• The High Authority, based in Luxembourg: nine independent members who acted in the common interest rather than for their governments. Jean Monnet was its first president (1952–1955). It could take binding decisions and raise a levy on coal and steel production, making it the first European body with its own tax-like revenue.
• The Special Council of Ministers: representatives of national governments, who had to approve certain decisions.
• The Common Assembly: 78 members delegated by national parliaments, with the power to censure the High Authority. It was the forerunner of the European Parliament.
• The Court of Justice: judges who ruled on disputes over the treaty, the ancestor of today’s Court of Justice of the European Union.

The common market for coal, iron ore and scrap opened on 10 February 1953, and the common market for steel on 1 May 1953.

Key people

• Jean Monnet (1888–1979): author of the Schuman Plan, chief negotiator of the treaty and first president of the High Authority. After 1955 he founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe.
• Robert Schuman (1886–1963): French foreign minister who announced the plan and signed the treaty for France.
• Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967): West German chancellor and foreign minister, who saw the Community as a route to equality for the Federal Republic.
• Paul-Henri Spaak (1899–1972): Belgian statesman and first president of the Common Assembly, later central to the negotiations for the Treaty of Rome.
• Alcide De Gasperi (1881–1954): Italian prime minister who supported the Community and was elected president of the Common Assembly in 1954, shortly before his death.

By the numbers

Achievements and limits

Trade in coal and steel among the six grew significantly in the 1950s. The High Authority funded housing for miners and steelworkers and, from the late 1950s, retraining and support for workers as coal mines closed. It also helped manage the decline of the coal industry, which faced competition from imported oil and cheaper coal.

The Community also served as a political symbol. For the first time since the war, West German ministers sat as equals with their former enemies, and joint institutions helped build habits of cooperation among national officials, judges and parliamentarians. The Saar question was settled in 1955–57, when the Saar’s voters rejected a European statute and the region returned to West Germany in 1957.

Its supranational powers proved weaker in practice than Monnet had hoped. Governments resisted interference in politically sensitive industries, and during the coal crisis of 1959 the Council refused to declare the “manifest crisis” that would have allowed production quotas. Monnet himself left in 1955 to campaign for wider integration. He was succeeded as president of the High Authority by René Mayer, a former French prime minister, and later by Paul Finet and Piero Malvestiti.

Steel production in the six nonetheless rose substantially during the 1950s, helped by the general economic boom, and by the 1960s the Community’s main task had shifted from expanding output to managing a long decline in coal mining in regions such as the Ruhr, Wallonia and northern France. Historians such as John Gillingham argue that the ECSC’s economic effects were modest, but its political significance was very large.

From ECSC to European Union

The ECSC was intended as a first step. After the failure of the European Defence Community in 1954, the six turned again to economic integration, leading to the Treaty of Rome of 1957, which created the European Economic Community and Euratom on the ECSC’s institutional model.

The Merger Treaty, in force from 1 July 1967, replaced the High Authority and the separate councils with a single Commission and Council for all three Communities. Later treaties, including the Maastricht Treaty, built the European Union on these foundations. The Treaty of Paris expired on 23 July 2002, and the ECSC’s remaining assets were transferred to the European Community to fund coal and steel research.

Timeline

• 1950, 9 May: Robert Schuman proposes pooling coal and steel.
• 1950, 20 June: Negotiations open in Paris under Jean Monnet.
• 1951, 18 April: The six sign the Treaty of Paris.
• 1952, 23 July: The treaty enters into force.
• 1952, 10 August: The High Authority begins work in Luxembourg under Monnet.
• 1952, September: The Common Assembly holds its first session in Strasbourg.
• 1953, 10 February: The common market for coal, iron ore and scrap opens.
• 1953, 1 May: The common market for steel opens.
• 1967, 1 July: The Merger Treaty unites the institutions of the three Communities.
• 2002, 23 July: The Treaty of Paris expires after 50 years.

Why it matters

The ECSC was the first time European nations handed real sovereign powers to a common body. By binding together French and German heavy industry, it helped make reconciliation durable, and its institutions became the template for the European Communities and the modern European Union.