The European Ideal
From war's s wreckage came the visions of a unified Europe
Today, 50 years after its birth, the European Union is a 27-member association of nations that functions as something more than a single market and something less than a full-blown political confederation. Defying the predictions of naysaying "Euro-skeptics," it boasts a combined $15.7 trillion gross domestic product and is governed by an array of institutions—executive, legislative, judicial, and monetary—to which member nations surrender at least part of their sovereignty. Given its hybrid and evolving character, it is perhaps fitting that the EU originated in a document that was little more than a sheaf of blank pages when it was signed on March 25, 1957.
Yet the Treaty of Rome was no stab in the dark. Representatives of the six signatory nations—France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg—had painstakingly crafted the foundations of what was initially called the European Economic Community. But according to a recent BBC documentary, the signers were so anxious to get the treaty signed that they couldn't wait for Italian printers to produce it.
Obstacle. The cause of that anxiety was a single person: Gen. Charles de Gaulle. Backers of the proposed community feared that the imperious wartime leader of Free France would soon be returned to the French presidency. And once back in power, they knew, de Gaulle would almost certainly quash the project that he believed jeopardized France's leading role in post-World War II Europe.
Urgent and somewhat improvised, the conditions of the treaty's signing would almost perfectly epitomize the precarious nature of the union's subsequent development. A "concatenation of political accidents" leading to a "convergence of interests," as University of Virginia historian Stephen Schuker described it, the treaty allowed the vision of a relatively unknown Frenchman, Jean Monnet, to prevail over that of his more illustrious fellow countryman.
Born in Cognac, the heir of a modest-size brandy firm, Monnet never attended university but quickly demonstrated a genius for making deals and cultivating international networks both in business and in various appointive offices. Serving as an official representative to England during World War I and later as deputy secretary-general of the short-lived League of Nations, Monnet arrived at a fervent belief in international cooperation and institutions.
During the Second World War, while orchestrating U.S. aid to Free France, Monnet had his first discussion with de Gaulle about the future shape of Europe. The latter, dreading American influence almost as much as Soviet aggression, favored a federation of nations with France at the helm. Monnet, once a believer in such a federation himself, proposed a more modest economic collective with nations enjoying equality under an international body controlling basic industries.
As a first step, Monnet settled for an arrangement that gave France limited control over the coal industry in Germany's Saar district. Soon, though, he turned to designing a more substantial plan for French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. Integrating the French and German coal and steel industries under a common High Authority, the "Schuman Plan" invited other European countries to join in. In all, six nations emerged as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952—the very six that would eventually sign the Treaty of Rome. As first president of the High Authority, Monnet could now test his proposition that economic cooperation could drive other forms of association.
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