5. From the End of the War to the Schuman Plan (the Late 1940s to the Early 1950s)

This chapter charts the long history of plans for European unity, from the end of the Second World War to the Hague Congress, the Cold War, the Schuman Plan, and the Treaty of Paris. It also considers European federalism and the practical reasons why some moves to European unity found favour with the new governments of the post-war period: the threat of communism and the emergence of the Cold War; the so-called German Problem; and the need to ensure adequate supplies of coal for the post-war economic reconstruction. As a solution to these intersecting problems, Jean Monnet, came up with a proposal that paved the way for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The chapter examines Monnet’s proposal, national reactions to it, and the negotiations that led to the creation of the first of the European communities.

The Schuman Plan and the Start of Supranational European Integration

France turned to European integration out of an awareness of the weakness of its international position in 1950. In particular it was conscious of the way in which it had been marginalized in the debate about the treatment of postwar Germany, forced to watch as a much stronger Federal Republic re-emerged than the French were comfortable with. But it was this defeat that spurred the radicalism of the Schuman Plan—the bold announcement by the French foreign minister in May 1950 that his country was willing jointly to operate its coal and steel sectors with Germany and whichever other European states felt able to join. The idea of building a strong European structure to control both French and German heavy industry was not an idealistic move, but something that would help avoid the likely triumph of German industry and the damage it could do to French recovery. In the process it would save the Monnet Plan, the economic blueprint for French postwar reconstruction put together by the author of the Schuman Plan, Jean Monnet. But it also would advance the wider goal of establishing a European framework within which Germany’s re-emergence could be controlled. That same framework, furthermore, appealed to Adenauer’s Germany as one that would both facilitate the new state’s international rehabilitation and bind the country securely to the Western bloc. To this central Franco-German bargain four other European countries would rally, partly out of enthusiasm for the wider goal of European unity, partly through fear of exclusion from a Europe built exclusively by their two largest neighbors. But crucially for future developments the United Kingdom would choose to abstain principally because it was too content with the European status quo of 1950 to need to embark on institutional experiments. This constituted a choice, the repercussions of which have endured into the early 21st century. The Schuman Plan thus constitutes a vital formative episode in the European integration process: it inaugurated a key French tactic and German response, it determined the cast list of the early integration story, and it introduced an institutional structure and modus operandi that, significantly modified, still lie at the heart of the 21st-century European Union.

2. How Did We Get Here?

This chapter focuses on the historical development of the European Union. The history of the EU began when European governments responded to a series of domestic, regional, and global challenges after the Second World War by establishing new transnational institutions in order to accelerate political and economic integration. These challenges ranged from post-war reconstruction to the Cold War, and then to globalization. Driven largely by mutually compatible national interests, Franco-German bargains, and American influence, politicians responded by establishing the European Communities in the 1950s and the EU in the 1990s. The chapter examines the Schuman Plan, the European Defence Community, the European Community, the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), enlargement, constitution building, and the Eurozone crisis.

2. Dividing Europe

This chapter examines how the politics of the Cold War shaped integration and created and cemented the division of Europe in the immediate postwar era. It first provides an overview of the origins of the Cold War in Europe before discussing the Marshall Plan and the Schuman Plan. It then considers the Western Alliance and German rearmament, the Soviet Union's attitude towards European integration, and alternatives to integration including the Western European Union and NATO. The chapter shows that the outbreak of the Cold War not only enabled the United States to remain engaged in European affairs but also spurred the process of European integration while ensuring that it would be confined to the western part of the continent. Of great significance was the connection made by American and French officials, notably Jean Monnet, between economic development, national security, and the double containment of Germany and the Soviet Union.

3. The German Problem and European Integration

This chapter examines how European integration contributed to the so-called German Problem — the problem of managing Germany's political rehabilitation and economic resurgence after World War II. The achievement rested not only on the Schuman Plan and the ensuing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), but also on cooperation among French and German coal and steel producers in the interwar period. The adoption by the new Federal Republic of homegrown economically liberal policies, which complemented and implemented the wartime vision of American postwar policy, was another decisive factor. The chapter first provides an overview of the postwar framework for Germany's economic recovery and political rehabilitation, focusing on the Marshall Plan, the German economic boom, and Jean Monnet's role in shaping postwar Europe. It also considers the evolution of French Ruhrpolitik, the Schuman Plan negotiations, and the eclipse of Monnetism and the founding of the European Economic Community.

Workers’ Politics, the Communist Challenge, and the Schuman Plan: A Comparative History of the French Socialist and German Social Democratic Parties and the First Treaty for European Integration

The Schuman Plan to “pool” the coal and steel industries of Western Europe has been widely celebrated as the founding document of today’s European Union. An expansive historiography has developed around the plan but labor and workers are largely absent from existing accounts, even though the sectors targeted for integration, coal and steel, are traditionally understood as centers of working-class militancy and union activity in Europe. Existing literature generally considers the role coal and steel industries played as objects of the Schuman Plan negotiations but this article reverses this approach. It examines instead how labor politics in the French Nord and Pas-de-Calais and the German Ruhr, core industrial regions, influenced the positions adopted by two prominent political parties, the French Socialist and German Social Democratic parties, on the integration of European heavy industry. The empirical material combines archival research in party and national archives with findings from regional histories of the Nord/Pas-de-Calais, the Ruhr, and their local socialist party chapters, as well as from historical and sociological research on miners and industrial workers. The article analyses how intense battles between socialists and communists for the allegiance of coal and steel workers shaped the political culture of these regions after the war and culminated during a mass wave of strikes in 1947–1948. The divergent political outcomes of these battles in the Nord/Pas-de-Calais and the Ruhr, this article contends, strongly contributed to the decisions of the French Socialist Party to support and the German Social Democratic Party to oppose the Schuman Plan in 1950.