Post-War Europe

Abstract

If history demands a date for the most important event in the movement which led to the creation of the European Economic Community that date might well be Tuesday, 9 May 1950. It was on that day, at four o’clock in the afternoon, that the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Robert Schuman, announced at a press conference that his Government had decided to place the entire complex of coal and steel production in France and Germany under a common High Authority in an organisation which would also be open to participation by other West European countries.