[FR] The birth of the European Community: an account of 9 May 1950

Far be it from me to compare myself to Goethe, who is said to have declared in September 1792, on the evening of the Battle of Valmy between the French and Prussian armies: ‘Here and now begins a new era in the history of the world, and you will be able to say that you were there.’

What I can say about 9 May 1950 is that, at 4 p.m. in the Salon de l’Horloge at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris, when Robert Schuman read his famous “Declaration” to the French and international press, I was there…

Dare I add, paraphrasing Goethe, that a new era in world history began that day? A new era in the history of Europe, certainly… At the time, I was 30 years old and director of Jean Monnet’s office at the Commissariat général du Plan de modernisation et d’équipement, a public body that brought together business leaders, trade unionists, senior civil servants and independent experts to work together.

I was not part of the very small team that had been working discreetly with Monnet in the preceding weeks on what was to become the “Schuman Declaration”, but I was in daily contact with this small team: Etienne Hirsch (who later became president of EURATOM), Pierre Uri, an economist (who later worked with Spaak at Val Duchesse during the preparation of the Treaties of Rome), Paul Reuter, professor of public law at Aix-en-Provence, and a few others. All of them have left this world, like Schuman and Monnet…