A retrospective of the European coal and steel community.
The argument by many who favoured Britain’s exit from the European Union has been that it was set up as an economic union, which however morphed into a political colossus, stripping sovereignty of the member states, on the march to become a supranational state. Therefore, it was asserted that Britain should leave the European Union as it had never intended to relinquish any of its sovereign rights. The United Kingdom became a member of European Communities, which later became the European Union in 1973. At the time, domestic opposition, unlike today was mainly from the Labour Party but for different reasons than sovereignty, such as high food prices under the Common Agricultural Policy. In fact, the question of sovereignty was discussed in an internal document of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO 30/1048) before the European Communities Act of 1972 but was not available to the public until January 2002 under the thirty-year rule. The document concluded (paragraph 26) that it was advisable to put the considerations of influence and power before those of formal sovereignty. Therefore, it is ingenious to suggest that Britain became aware of losing its sovereignty and of the EU becoming a supranational state only after becoming a member and as late as before the 2016 referendum.
The question is whether the European Union and its preceding forms were in fact set up as economic partnership organizations which unintentionally devolved into a political entity or was there always the aim of creating a powerful organization which would transcend national identities. An analysis of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)may offer some insight.
The European Coal and Steel Community was founded in 1951by six European countries; France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in order to regulate their industrial production under a central authority. Creating a common market for coal and steel, which were vital resources for war, and thus making war “materially impossible” between age-old rivals, France and Germany was the main aim. Similar to the Labour Party’s opposition to the UK’s entry to the European Community in 1973, the Social Democrat Party in Germany was against the ECSC due to concerns unrelated to sovereignty.
Although the ECSC was an economic union, the French foreign minister Robert Schuman, who had devised it was very clear that it was the first supranational entity which would result in a European political union, ‘step by step’. Schuman was born in Luxembourg, but his father was from the Lorraine region of France which borders Germany. He recognized the unsustainability of the “International Authority for Ruhr” which gave France, USA, UK and Benelux countries the mandate to administer the region, effectively dictating how much coal and steel Germans would get. He outlined his vision of a Europe in a speech which became known as Schuman Declaration on the 9thof May 1950(now celebrated as the Europe Day).In his speech, he suggested that cooperation was to be designed in such a way as to create common interests between European countries which would lead to gradual political integration: a prerequisite for the pacification of relations between them.
On the 11th of August 1952, the United States was the first non-ECSC member to recognize the Community and stated it would now deal with the ECSC on coal and steel matters, establishing its delegation in Brussels. The president of the ECSC, Jean Monnet responded by choosing Washington D.C.as the site of the ECSC's first external presence. The headline of the delegation's first bulletin read "Towards a Federal Government of Europe". Contrary to its current stance, the United States directly funded prominent European pro-federalists through the government-funded American Committee on United Europe.
Although there have been setbacks afterwards, such as the failure of the establishment of the European Defence Community, the rhetoric during the foundation of the ECSC leaves no doubt that that the aim has always been to strip the sovereignty of the individual states and set up a supranational state.
It is ironic that Winston Churchill, who is admired by many Brexit supporters, standing next to Robert Schuman, had called for Franco-German reconciliation in a united Europe in a speech in Metzen 14 July 1946. In Zurich, Churchill later called for a "United States of Europe" and, in the meantime, the formation of a "Council of Europe".
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