Treaty of Paris (1951)

The Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951 and entered into force on 23 July 1952, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Its six founding signatories were France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg — the group later known as the "Inner Six."

The treaty grew out of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, in which French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, drawing on a plan drafted by Jean Monnet, proposed placing Franco-German coal and steel production under a common High Authority. The political logic was twofold: to make another war between France and Germany "not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible," and to anchor a recovering West Germany within a Western European institutional framework in the early Cold War.

Institutionally, the ECSC introduced the supranational architecture that would later shape the European Union. Its four core organs were:

• the High Authority (the executive, forerunner of the European Commission), with Jean Monnet as its first president;
• a Common Assembly of national parliamentarians (forerunner of the European Parliament);
• a Special Council of Ministers representing member governments; and
• a Court of Justice to adjudicate disputes.

Substantively, the treaty created a common market in coal, iron ore, and steel, abolishing internal tariffs and quotas on these goods and empowering the High Authority to regulate prices, production, and competition.

The Treaty of Paris was concluded for a fixed term of 50 years and accordingly expired on 23 July 2002; its remaining functions were absorbed into the European Community framework established by the Treaties of Rome (1957) and subsequent treaties. It is widely regarded as the foundational instrument of European integration and the institutional template from which the EEC, EC, and EU evolved.