Schuman Declaration (1950): The Plan That Launched European Unity

The Schuman Declaration was a proposal announced by French foreign minister Robert Schuman in Paris on 9 May 1950 to place French and West German coal and steel production under a common supranational authority. Drafted largely by Jean Monnet, it aimed to make another war between the two countries impossible and became the founding text of the process that led to today’s European Union. Its anniversary is celebrated as Europe Day.

Background: the German question

Five years after the Second World War, the future of Germany remained the central problem of Western Europe. France had been invaded by Germany three times in seventy years, in 1870, 1914 and 1940. French policy after 1945 had aimed to keep German heavy industry under control, especially in the Ruhr, and to keep the coal-rich Saar region economically tied to France.

By 1949 this approach was failing. The Federal Republic of Germany had been founded, and the United States and Britain wanted West German industry revived as part of Western recovery and Cold War defence. The Marshall Plan had encouraged European cooperation, and American officials were pressing France to find a new policy towards its neighbour. Dean Acheson, the US Secretary of State, asked Schuman to come forward with proposals before a foreign ministers’ meeting in London in May 1950.

Monnet’s plan

Jean Monnet, a former businessman and League of Nations official who ran France’s economic planning office, saw an opportunity. In April 1950 he and a small team, including Pierre Uri, Étienne Hirsch and the legal scholar Paul Reuter, drafted a short text proposing to pool coal and steel under an independent “High Authority” whose decisions would bind member states.

Robert Schuman, born in Luxembourg in 1886 and raised in German-annexed Lorraine, understood both cultures and was strongly committed to reconciliation. He took up Monnet’s draft. Before presenting it, he sent a messenger to Bonn to seek the agreement of West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who accepted it immediately. The French cabinet approved the plan on the morning of 9 May, with few ministers fully informed of its details. Adenauer later wrote that he welcomed the proposal as a chance to end the long hostility between the two countries and to restore Germany’s standing among the Western nations.

The declaration of 9 May 1950

Late in the afternoon of 9 May 1950, Schuman read the declaration to journalists in the Salon de l’Horloge (Clock Room) of the French Foreign Ministry on the Quai d’Orsay. The text was brief but ambitious.

It stated that “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan”, but would be built “through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”. Pooling coal and steel would make war between France and Germany “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible”. The new authority would be open to other European countries, and the declaration described it as “the first concrete foundation of a European federation”.

Reactions

West Germany welcomed the plan, which offered equality and an end to unilateral controls. Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg agreed to negotiate. The United States strongly supported it.

The British government declined. Clement Attlee’s Labour government had just nationalised coal and steel and would not accept prior commitment to a supranational body. France insisted that participants accept the principle in advance, and on 3 June 1950 the six countries announced they would negotiate on that basis without Britain.

Reactions within France were mixed. The French Communist Party opposed the plan as an American-inspired project, while Gaullists objected to the loss of sovereignty. Many industrialists on both sides of the Rhine feared competition and the end of cartels. In West Germany, the opposition Social Democrats under Kurt Schumacher argued that the plan favoured France and would deepen the division of Germany.

Negotiations opened in Paris on 20 June 1950 under Monnet’s chairmanship. They were complicated by the outbreak of the Korean War and by disputes over the break-up of German steel and coal cartels, but they produced the Treaty of Paris, signed on 18 April 1951, which created the European Coal and Steel Community.

Myths and facts

Myth: Schuman wrote the declaration himself. The text was drafted by Jean Monnet and his team. Schuman’s decisive contribution was political: he adopted the plan, secured Adenauer’s and the cabinet’s agreement and announced it in his own name, taking the risk if it failed.

Myth: the declaration created a European institution. It was only a proposal. The European Coal and Steel Community came into existence after nearly a year of negotiations, the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1951 and ratification by six parliaments in 1952.

Fact: it was prepared in near secrecy. Very few people knew of the plan before 9 May. Monnet deliberately avoided the usual channels of the French Foreign Ministry and civil service, fearing that the proposal would be watered down or blocked.

Fact: the timing was tied to diplomacy. Schuman announced the plan on 9 May, just before the foreign ministers of France, Britain and the United States met in London. Presenting a bold French initiative allowed France to take the lead on the German question instead of reacting to American and British proposals.

Fact: the plan was open to all. The declaration invited any European country to join. In practice only six accepted, and the Community remained limited to Western Europe during the Cold War.

Key people

• Robert Schuman (1886–1963): French foreign minister from 1948 to early 1953 and later the first president of the European Parliamentary Assembly (1958–1960). The Catholic Church has opened a cause for his beatification.
• Jean Monnet (1888–1979): the plan’s chief architect and first president of the ECSC High Authority.
• Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967): West German chancellor, who saw the plan as a path to equality and Western integration.
• Dean Acheson: US Secretary of State, informed of the plan in advance and an important supporter.

Legacy and Europe Day

The Schuman Declaration introduced the “Community method”: limited but real transfers of national power to common institutions in specific economic sectors, in the hope that integration would spread over time. That approach led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and eventually to the European Union.

In 1985 the European Council meeting in Milan designated 9 May as Europe Day. Schuman, Monnet and Adenauer are often counted among the “founding fathers” of the EU. Historians note, however, that the plan also served French national interests, securing access to German coal and supervising German industry within a framework acceptable to Washington and Bonn.

Timeline

• 1949, 23 May: The Federal Republic of Germany is founded.
• 1950, April: Jean Monnet and his team draft the coal and steel proposal.
• 1950, 9 May: Adenauer accepts the plan; the French cabinet approves it and Schuman announces it in Paris.
• 1950, 3 June: Six countries agree to negotiate on the basis of the declaration.
• 1950, 20 June: Negotiations open in Paris under Monnet.
• 1951, 18 April: The Treaty of Paris establishing the ECSC is signed.
• 1985, June: European leaders in Milan adopt 9 May as Europe Day.

Why it matters

The Schuman Declaration turned Franco-German rivalry into partnership by tying together the industries that had fuelled their wars. Its step-by-step method of integration set the pattern for European cooperation for the rest of the century, and its date is still marked each year as Europe Day.