SCHUMAN AND PARIS.

The
basis of European integration
Álvaro Hernández García – EUR2915
INDEX
THE SOURCES OF ANALYSIS .................................................................................... 2

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 2

SCHUMAN DECLARATION AND THE TREATY OF PARIS. THE PILLARS OF

THE EU ............................................................................................................................ 2

❖ ECONOMIC DIMENSION .................................................................................. 3

❖ INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION ......................................................................... 4

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 6

1
THE SOURCES OF ANALYSIS
• The Schuman declaration from the Historical Archives of the European Union
(French and German version): https://archives.eui.eu/en/fonds/334046
• The Treaty stablishing the European Coal and Steel Community from the Center
for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH):
https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/treaty_establishing_the_european_coal_and_steel_c
ommunity_paris_18_april_1951-en-11a21305-941e-49d7-a171-
ed5be548cd58.html

INTRODUCTION
The Schuman declaration is a speech delivered by the French Foreign minister, Robert
Schuman, on 9th May 1950, to which Jean Monnet made a decisive contribution. It
proposed the creation of the ECSC to pool the coal and steel production of France,
Germany and any other countries that wished to join. It was the intellectual framework
on which the Treaty establishing the ECSC or Treaty of Paris (1951) was based.

The Schuman Declaration and the Treaty of Paris are the two sides of the same coin. The
former is the intellectual basis on which the latter is settled. We cannot understand the
conformation of the ECSC without attending to the principles set out by the Schuman
Declaration. We cannot even understand the integration process of the European Union
and its configuration without attending these two documents. The Schuman Declaration
has, under my point of view, two dimensions that will later crystallise in the Treaty
establishing the European Coal and Steel Community: an economic and an institutional
dimension. The paper has the aim of evidence the connection between these two
documents, analysing these dimensions appointed in the Schuman Declaration and
concreted in the Treaty of Paris and the reasons behind them.

SCHUMAN DECLARATION AND THE TREATY OF PARIS. THE

PILLARS OF THE EU
The first point to note is the federalist character of the Schuman declaration. The word
federation appears twice on it. We are not witnessing the announcement of the creation
of an international organisation as conceived in the past with the League of Nations, but
the creation of a supra-state organisation to which the founding states would, for the first

2
time, cede part of their sovereignty, starting with the production of the coal and steel and
the unification of its market (Burgess, 2011).

The ECSC is not conceived as an end, as a finished project; the Schuman declaration itself
shows the evolutionary character of European integration when says: “Europe will not be
made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete
achievements which first create a de facto solidarity” (Schuman, 1950). The ECSC is
conceived as the basis for the European integration, and it has been proven, as the paper
will explain, that it has been the basis of todays EU.

Schuman Declaration was based on Monnet's consideration that in order to solve the so-
called "German problem" a pragmatic approach was needed to make war materially
impossible. To this end, the Franco-German alliance was key to the construction of an
economic unity which would exclude the possibility of German domination of the steel
and coal industries. Also, to generate economic dynamism without imbalances. The
Franco-German alliance was the first step to construct a supra national organization, even
though there were six countries founding the ECSC. That is why the Franco-German
alliance is said to be the European integration engine that evolved since that moment with
important impulses like the Élysée Treaty signed in 1968 which supposed an advance in
the institutionalization of Franco-German relationship.

❖ ECONOMIC DIMENSION
The Schuman declaration announces the propose of creating an open market for coal and
steel, raw materials historically used for the manufacture of munition. Economy is
conceived as a pragmatic path to achieve peace and make impossible to start a new war
between Germany and France that had continually fought over the regions that harbour
the production of these raw materials. As the Schuman declaration says: ʻwar between
France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossibleʼ
(Schuman, 1950). Schuman and ECSC conception of economic interdependence as a way
to achieve a long and lasting peace that discourages the use of force is in line with the
theses of liberalism applied to international relations. Therefore, the Schuman declaration
as the seed of the European integration project is one of the greatest exponents of the
international liberal order based on free open market (CVCE, 2010).

3
As appointed in the Schuman declaration, the Treaty of Paris abolish customs duties and
quotas as well as tariffs on exports between ECSC countries. International tariffs were
set. Subsidies or state assistance, or special
charges imposed by the state were also forbidden
(Bonnet, 1951). In this way, a sectoral common
market is created, which will serve as a precursor
to the single internal market of the EU, where free
movement of goods, services, capital and people
will have a general character. Schuman plan was
not only to generate an economic interdependence
that would make war materially impossible, but
also to generate economic dynamism through the
free market for steel and coal. These two
objectives (peace and economic growth) are
embodied in both (Grace, 2016), the Schuman
declaration ʻThe pooling of coal and steel
production should immediately provide for the Figure 1. Area of the Schumann
Plan.
setting up of common foundations for economic
development (…) and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been
devoted to the manufacture of munitions of warʼ (Schuman, 1950); and also in the
preamble of the Treaty establishing the ECSC: ʻANXIOUS to help, by expanding their
basic production, to raise the standard of living and further the works of peaceʼ (Treaty
stablishing the European Coal and Steel Community, 1951).

❖ INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION
The institutional dimension is appointed in the Schuman declaration mentioning a High
Authority, that means, an executive organism. This brief mention of the new institution
that will be in charge of the regulation of the unified coal and steel market is extended
and specified in the Treaty of Paris, where it is designed an institutional architecture that
will be further developed as the integration process progresses. It is the Title Two of the
Treaty, named “The Institutions of the Community”, where the four institutions of the
ECSC are regulated. The importance of the design of this structure resides in the fact that
it is the germ of the institutional configuration we know today. It has been a condition for
the possibility of European integration.

4
Firstly, the High Authority of the community mentioned in the Schuman declaration and
set out in Chapter I of Title Two of the Treaty of Paris as a collegial body with executive
functions. It constitutes a precedent for the European Commission that would be shaped
in the Treaty of Rome and that today maintains this nomenclature within the EU.

In second place, the Assembly, regulated in the Chapter II, is a distant precedent of today's
European Parliament with merely consultative and supervisory functions and originally
not conceived as a body elected by universal suffrage, but by national parliaments.

Thirdly, the Council (Chapter III), is the institution that will become the European
Council and the Council of the EU. It is configured as a necessary coordinating institution
with the High Authority for the harmonisation of the actions of the different governments
and the actions of the High Authority.

Finally, the Court (Chapter IV), is the judicial branch of the ECSC the judicial branch to
ensure compliance with the treaty. Its functions will be enlarged with the development of
the European law and the advance in the European integration.

CONCLUSION
The aim of this paper is to answer why these two documents have been fundamental for
the European integration. After exposing the dimensions that configure both of them can
be affirmed that the Schuman declaration is the theoretical foundation of the Treaty of
Paris which proposes a supra-state organisation and the delegation of competences from
the states to a higher authority, it is basically the enunciation of the essence of today's EU.
The Treaty of Paris crystallises and concretises the principles set out in the Schuman
Declaration and is the basis on which European integration will be built, with all that this
implies: the institutional interlocking, the common market and the economic
interdependence as a guarantee of peace and socio-economic progress.

5
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bonnet, H. (Winter, 1951). The Schuman Plan. World Affairs , Winter, 1951, Vol. 114,
No. 4 , 99-102.

Burgess, M. (Summer 2011). Entering the Path of Transformation in Europe: The Federal
Legacy of the Schuman. French Politics, Culture & Society, Summer 2011, Vol.
29, No. 2, 4-18.

CVCE. (s.f.). From the Schuman Plan to the Paris Treaty (1950-1952) — Foreword:
http://www.cvce.eu/obj/from_the_schuman_plan_to_the_paris_treaty_1950_195
2_f

Gillingham, J. (203). European Integration 1950-2003: Superstate or New Market

Economy? Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Grace, E. (Autumn 2016). The Future of European Solidarity: A Reflection on the

Schuman Declaration. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 105, No. 419,
EUROPE IN CRISIS, 342-352.

Schuman, R. (1950). Schuman Declaration. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-

countries-history/history-eu/1945-59/schuman-declaration-may-1950_en

Treaty stablishing the European Coal and Steel Community. (1951).

https://www.cvce.eu/en/recherche/unit-content/-/unit/b9fe3d6d-e79c-495e-856d-
9729144d2cbd/c21569f1-e6cd-4844-8372-40e7fac77794/Resources#11a21305-
941e-49d7-a171-ed5be548cd58_en&overlay

6
7