The United States of America had very different motives for European integration to those of the European states. In the difficult years after World War Two Europe divided and two global superpowers emerged. The Soviet Union became an increasingly intimidating presence in the East and what was once an enemy became a useful ally in the Cold War. Dell believes that ‘the Truman Administration began to develop a key role for a strong and prosperous Germany in the confrontation of the two superpowers’. European integration was therefore crucial not only to safeguard Europe against Germany but also as ‘a deterrent against Soviet aggression’. Germany was again required in 1950 when the Korean War broke out. Resources of steel were in extremely short supply in the West and the US relied on supplies from the German Ruhr area in order to re-arm, as this was the only centre of coal, iron and steel production. This encouraged America to push for the re-building of Germany and the setting up of the European Coal and Steel Community and so the US can be seen as a driving force behind the supranational integration of the Schuman Plan. However Dell explains how America initially expected the stable government of Britain to take the leading role in the integration of Europe after 1945 but when it became apparent that this would not happen, they then looked to France to be the main instigator.
It was France who had endured German occupation, and so experienced the bitterest of feelings. The experience of repeated war and the failure of the 1919 Versailles solution meant that they lacked any notion of trust in their German neighbours, and defence was now a key concern. France’s insecurity was their lack of control over Germany’s economic advantage: the Ruhr. They feared that this could possibly allow the state to become an aggressor once again. Something had to be done to contain Germany and prevent another European war, but the League of Nations had not been successful and France could not attempt to control Germany because this would only re-ignite old hostilities. The aim was to maintain a balance of power within the European states and France was willing to sacrifice some of its national sovereignty in order to achieve this. The Schuman Plan could be seen as a way of establishing a degree of control over Germany while they were relatively weak. Their immediate post-war strategy was to contain and suppress Germany: both the public and politicians of France were in strong opposition to German recovery so this suggestion is certainly feasible.
France was undoubtedly the most active of the driving forces behind the supranational integration of the Schuman Plan. Security was clearly a key concern in the midst of warring nations, but there were important economic factors to be considered when investigating French motives for European integration. Monnet claimed that it was a matter of economic survival for France to establish joint control of the Ruhr. European economies were struggling after the war years but Germany had the opportunity to recover using its steel industry. France did not want to fall behind what was potentially the strongest nation in Europe. The aim of the European Coal and Steel Community was ‘the establishment of a common economic system’, which may be seen as France’s guarantee of keeping a check on German economic development. No matter what way the Schuman Plan of 1950 is translated, Monnet believed that pushing for a more concrete economic relationship between the nations would eventually lead to a more established European union politically. His goal was that Europe would ultimately become a federation, thus overcoming the former problem of warring nation-states.
Jean Monnet was not the first to come up with the idea of European integration. As far back as the 18th century, French writer and radical, Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre proposed the creation of a European league of eighteen states. Even Churchill used the term ‘United States of Europe’ in his famous speech at the University of Zurich in 1946. However Monnet’s plan for European integration entailed two new concepts: functionalism and federalism. Functionalism can be identified as ‘building cooperation among countries through the integration of one or more highly important economic function shared by all of them’. Overlapping in the economy supports this idea, which eventually leads to federalism: ‘both vertical power-sharing across different levels of governance and, at the same time, the integration of different territorial and socio-economic units, cultural and ethnic groups in one single polity’. Haas claims:
‘Monnet considered it tactically useful to merge federally the economic sector which is most difficult to separate from the total economy and which most appeals to the public mind as symbolic of industrial power: coal and steel. If properly managed by a non-national, detached, technocratic body of “Europeans,” such a merger would inevitably lead to full federation’.
Jean Monnet was perhaps the one person who was the main driving force behind the supranational integration of the Schuman Plan. His idea was a functional approach to a federal Europe: to create regional security and peace.
Robert Schuman announced the plan on 9 May 1950. Any European state could join but only the approval of Germany was required. It set out proposals for a common High Authority and the pooling of coal and steel production so that ‘any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible’. Despite the opinion that the Schuman plan was a means of preventing German resurgence, the Federal German Chancellor Adenauer was enthusiastic about the plans. Arter explains that he agreed immediately because the ECSC ‘opened up the prospect both of export markets for the crisis-ridden German economy and of the status of founder-member on equal terms with the French’. Adenauer wanted the removal of the restrictions that had been imposed upon Germany by the Occupation Statute and the International Ruhr Authority. He felt that the European Coal and Steel Community could also solve the problem of the Saar: another region of antagonism between the French and German states. European integration was a chance for the Germans to prove their changed nature and become a respected and trustworthy international actor, and Adenauer ‘insisted on equal terms for the FRG into the ECSC’.
Dell makes the point that in the wake of two world wars the states of Europe needed a constitutional guarantee to prevent such a catastrophe from re-occurring. But in order to achieve Monnet’s federal Europe, trust was required between France and Germany. This was clearly absent considering that France never intended to share full equality with Germany. She remained opposed to German rearmament and although prepared to sacrifice national sovereignty, she was not prepared to trust Germany. However in 1952 six countries signed the Treaty of Paris: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. This set up an autonomous institutional system to manage ‘a framework of production and distribution arrangements for coal and steel’. Notably, the UK did not sign up to the treaty. France did propose the plan to Britain at an early stage, hopeful for endorsement in order to establish a strong stance for the desired relationship with Germany. But when Britain rejected the plan, France then had to carry on with the development of the ECSC regardless of her lack of trust in Germany.
La Methode Monnet has proved effective in the long run. The ECSC was in operation by 1952 and it proved to form the basis of numerous future institutions such as the European Economic Community and the European Union. Jean Monnet was therefore the chief visionary of European integration. It could be argued that the real driving force behind the Schuman Plan was the French fear of German revival. European integration has constantly evolved for over fifty years now, but the Schuman Plan and the ECSC was undoubtedly the starting point of this process. Jean Monnet hailed it as ‘the first expression of a Europe that is being born’. France therefore was not only the main driving force behind the supranational integration of the Schuman Plan, but she also instigated it. However if it were not for the further motives of the Truman administration in the US, and the willingness of Germany to participate, the European Coal and steel Community would never have transpired.
E. Dell, The Schuman Plan and the British Abdication of Leadership in Europe, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 16.
R. Palmer et al, A History of the Modern World, ninth edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002, p. 801.
M. Dedman, The Origins and Development of the European Union 1945-95, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 21-23.
D. Arter, The Politics of European Integration in the Twentieth Century, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited, 1993, pp. 118-119.
A. Carls et al, ‘"Functionalism" and "Federalism" in the European Union’, The Centre for Public Justice, , 2002.
I. McLean et al, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, second edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, p.194.
E. Haas, The Uniting of Europe, London: Stevens and Sons Limited, 1958, p.455.
‘The Schumanplan Declaration’, Leiden University Historical Institute, , 01/03/2004.
Arter, op. cite., p. 122.
Dedman, op. cite., p. 63.
Europa Gateway to the EU, , 14/05/05.
D. Urwin, Western Europe since 1945, fourth edition, London: Longman Inc., 1989, p. 105.