European Integration: From the Coal and Steel Community to the European Union

Core Idea

After the Second World War, Western European leaders set out to make another war between France and Germany impossible by tying their economies together. The European Coal and Steel Community of 1951 pooled the coal and steel industries of six countries, and the Treaty of Rome in 1957 created the European Economic Community, a common market. The community grew in waves, built a single market, and through the Maastricht Treaty became the European Union in 1993, later adding a shared currency, the euro. Integration has always involved debate over how much power nations should give up, a tension seen in the eurozone crisis and in Britain's exit from the EU in 2020.

How It's Best Learned

Read the 1950 Schuman Declaration and identify the problem it was meant to solve. Build a timeline and map of enlargement from the six founding members to the inclusion of former communist states in 2004. Compare the EU with other international organizations, such as the United Nations, to see what makes it unusual: shared laws, a court and, for many members, a common currency.

Common Misconceptions

• The European Union was created immediately after the Second World War. (Integration began with the Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and the Economic Community in 1957; the European Union itself was created by the Maastricht Treaty, in force from 1993.)
• All EU members use the euro. (Several members, such as Denmark, Sweden and Poland, kept their own currencies.)
• European integration was only an economic project. (Its founders saw economic ties as a way to secure peace and political cooperation, and the EU later added common citizenship rights, foreign policy cooperation and a parliament elected directly by citizens.)

Explainer

You have studied how two world wars devastated Europe and how the Cold War then split it into East and West. In 1945 many Western European leaders concluded that national rivalry, especially between France and Germany, had to be contained by new institutions. The United States, through the Marshall Plan, also encouraged European cooperation as a defense against Soviet influence.

On May 9, 1950, French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposed a plan drawn up with Jean Monnet: place French and German coal and steel production under a common authority. The European Coal and Steel Community was founded by treaty in 1951 with six members: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In 1957 the same six signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community. It provided for removing tariffs among members, a common external tariff and a common farm policy.

The community expanded in stages. Britain, Ireland and Denmark joined in 1973. Greece joined in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986, all recently freed from dictatorships. The Single European Act of 1986 aimed to complete a single market, with free movement of goods, services, capital and people, by the end of 1992. The Maastricht Treaty, in force from 1993, created the European Union, introduced EU citizenship and planned a common currency. The euro was introduced in 1999 for electronic transactions, and notes and coins followed in 2002.

The end of the Cold War opened the way east. In 2004 ten countries joined, most of them former communist states such as Poland and Hungary. Bulgaria and Romania followed in 2007 and Croatia in 2013.

Integration has created tension over sovereignty. From 2009 a debt crisis in Greece and other eurozone members strained the shared currency, and the EU imposed strict conditions in return for loans. In a 2016 referendum British voters chose to leave, and the United Kingdom left the EU in January 2020. Still, the EU remains an unusual experiment: independent states sharing a court, a directly elected parliament, common laws and, for many, a single currency.