What treaty established the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951?

The Treaty of Paris established the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. Signed in Paris on 18 April 1951, it placed the coal and steel industries of six countries under a shared supranational framework.

The six founding participants were Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. Pooling coal and steel production was both an economic and political project: these materials were essential to armaments, so shared control was intended to make another European war less likely. The community began operating on 23 July 1952.

The treaty created institutions including a High Authority, a Common Assembly, a Council of Ministers and a Court of Justice. These became important predecessors of later European institutions. The ECSC was the first major organisation in the process of European integration and eventually became part of the European Communities, which helped develop into today’s European Union.

The Treaty of Rome came later, in 1957, establishing the European Economic Community. The Maastricht Treaty created the modern European Union in 1993, while the Schengen Agreement concerns passport-free travel rather than coal and steel.