The Birth of the ECSC and Belgium

Abstract

This paper focuses on Belgium's attitude to the Schuman Plan announced on May 9, 1950 which led to the establishment of the ECSC in 1952; the ECSC was a great step toward Western European integration. According to my research, based on primary sources in Belgium and the EC commission, Belgium had difficult problems concerning this project although most previous studies have not mentioned them. The Schuman Plan gave a great shock to Belgium since it enforced a radical change in the Belgian economic structure and economic policy as well. This study also deals with the main economic problems before the Schuman Plan. In the economic reconstructing process after World War I, Belgium had prosperity without pfennings and nationalizations that the most Western European countries had experienced. But after the 1940's as someone was afraid, the Belgian economy was weakened. Particularly, the Belgian coal industry became less competitive in the world while its steel industry was one of the greatest steel exporters. The Schuman Plan negotiation in Paris was affected mainly by economic problems, and leading Belgian officials formed a delegation which included important industrialists and unionists. Business organizations were against the ECSC because it would cause a crisis in coal industry and the steel industry was afraid of anti-cartel and anti-concentration clauses in the ECSC treaty. Belgium, which traditionally had liberal trends, hesitated about the "dirisisme". Despite business organizations' anti-ECSC movements, political interests, including Belgian government and trade unions, welcomed the ECSC. The Congress ratified it by a great majority in 1952. The political side chose it in order to solve economic problems since it thought the ECSC would provide the rationalization and modernization Belgian economy by powerful official control. Because Western European countries faced the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, after World War II, they decided to combine their economic power against them. Consequently, the ECSC introduced official intervention in private economic activities, which had particularly important meanings to Belgium.