European Coal and Steel Union

The European Coal and Steel Union (ECSU) was a common authority over the coal and steel industries of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, established by the Treaty of Brussels in 1938 with its seat in Brussels. It was the first institution shared by European states. It set production quotas and prices for its members' coal and steel and removed the tariffs on them, and during the First Euro-American War it directed their production for the war. In 1942 it was merged into the European Federation, whose founding treaty was drafted largely by its lawyers.

Background

After the First World War the coal of the Ruhr, the iron ore of Lorraine and the steelworks of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Saar formed one industrial region divided by national borders, and disputes over reparations and coal deliveries strained relations between France and Germany through the 1920s. The steel producers of Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Saar formed a private cartel in 1926 to share out export markets.

In the banking crisis of July 1931 the central banks of France, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden opened a credit pool for the German banks at Basel. France's condition was an agreement on steel quotas among the six states, which their governments negotiated the same year and renewed annually until 1938. The French, Belgian, German and Dutch electricity grids were interconnected at 220 kV in 1934, largely by H&A.

By the Geneva Revision of 9 December 1937, France, Britain, Italy and Belgium ended the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, which had limited Germany's army to 100,000 men. France's condition for its agreement was that German heavy industry be placed under an authority on which France sat.

Treaty

The Treaty of Brussels was signed at the Egmont Palace on 26 September 1938 and came into force on 1 January 1939. It placed the coal and steel production of the six states under a Common Authority in Brussels, which set production quotas and prices, allocated coal between the members' steelworks, and removed tariffs on coal, iron ore and steel between them.

A secret protocol to the treaty allowed the Common Authority to allocate steel to its members' rearmament. It was disclosed to the Assembly in 1939.

Organisation

The Common Authority had nine members, appointed by the member governments for six years: two each from France, Germany and Italy, and one each from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Its decisions were taken by majority. A Council of national ministers could overrule it by unanimity, and an Assembly of 78 delegates from the national parliaments met in Brussels twice a year to hear its reports. A Court of three judges settled disputes over quotas between the Authority, member governments and companies.

In 1938 the six states produced about 32 million tonnes of steel and 420 million tonnes of coal. The Authority had a staff of about 600 in 1940.

War

Six weeks after the treaty was signed, the American government issued the Debt Proclamation of 11 November 1938, declaring the member states' war debts due and offering to accept territory in the Americas in settlement. The American government named the Union, with imperial preference, among the trade barriers raised against American goods.

On the outbreak of the First Euro-American War in April 1940 the Common Authority took control of the allocation of coal and steel for its members' war industries. Its first president, the Belgian engineer Georges Lambrecht, led it until 1942. After American forces took Brussels on 22 July 1942, its staff moved to Prague with the European governments. The Common Authority attended the Prague Conference of August and September 1942, and its lawyers wrote most of the text of the Treaty of Prague, which merged the Union into the European Federation and transferred its offices and Assembly to the Federation.

Legacy

The Federation's directorates for industry and for trade, which sit in Brussels, are the successors of the Union's offices, and the European Parliament counts the Union's Assembly as its predecessor. The Union's role is a standard subject of the Federation's federal history course, which presents it as the first institution Europe built against the threat from America. Belgian historians have more often described it as the first institution Europe built for itself.

See also

• European Federation
• Treaty of Prague
• Brussels
• First Euro-American War