Coal, Steel, and the Euro
The road to the euro began with coal and steel. Here’s Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, in 1950, proposing the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community:
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. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries.
With this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken immediately on one limited but decisive point.
It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organization open to the participation of the other countries of Europe. The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims.
The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible. The setting up of this powerful productive unit, open to all countries willing to take part and bound ultimately to provide all the member countries with the basic elements of industrial production on the same terms, will lay a true foundation for their economic unification.
It’s all there. Economic integration is supposed to serve a dual purpose: development, but also the creation of “de facto solidarity”, leading over time to a “European federation” — which is necessary because of the continent’s history of war.
Unfortunately, the euro — unlike the coal and steel pact, the Common Market, the Eurosausage, and all that — was a questionable idea in terms of the underlying economics. And so the long European project is in trouble …
