THE European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established by the Treaty of Paris in 1951 to integrate Europe’s coal and steel industries.

The original signatories were France, West Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Only five years before, several of those countries had been at war against each other for the second time in 30 years. The ECSC was a plan to prevent war breaking out again.

The country representatives on the ECSC High Authority sat on that body not as representatives of their states, but to take decisions in the interest of the six states as a whole.

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In full knowledge of the quantity of coal and steel being produced in each state, it would be obvious to the High Authority if any country was preparing to rearm secretly in contravention of international agreements, as happened in Germany in the 1930s.

Very quickly, however, as the ECSC was operating successfully, it became obvious that the economic interests of the states lay in ever greater cooperation.

Six years later, in 1957, by the Treaty of Rome, the members of the ECSC came together in the European Economic Community (EEC).

The treaty came into operation in 1958 and was symbolically sealed by the visit of the West German Chancellor Konrad........

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