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Messina Conference
The Messina Conference of 1955 was a meeting of the six member states of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The conference assessed the progress of the ECSC and, deciding that it was working well, proposed further European integration. This initiative led to the creation in 1957 of the European Economic Community and Euratom. The conference was held from 1 to 3 June 1955 at the Italian city of Messina, Sicily, in the City Hall building known as Palazzo Zanca ( it). It was a meeting of the foreign ministers of all six member states of the ECSC, and it would lead to the creation of the European Economic Community. The delegations of the six participating countries were headed by Johan Willem Beyen (Netherlands), Gaetano Martino (Italy), Joseph Bech (Luxembourg), Antoine Pinay (France), Walter Hallstein (Germany), and Paul-Henri Spaak (Belgium). Joseph Bech was chairman of the meeting. The Foreign Ministers of the ECSC had to meet in order to nominate a member of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Coal And Steel Community
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to regulate the coal and steel industries. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. The ECSC was an international organization based on the principle of supranationalism, and started a process of integration which ultimately led to the creation of the European Union. The ECSC was first proposed as the Schuman Declaration by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on the 9th of May 1950 (today's Europe Day of the EU), the day after the fifth anniversary of the end of World War II, as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany. He declared he aimed to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" which was to be achieved by regional integration, of which the ECSC was the first step. The Treaty would create a common market for coal and steel among its me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Coppé
Albert Coppé (26 November 1911 in Bruges – 30 March 1999 in Tervuren) was a Belgian and European politician and economist. Biography Born in Bruges on 26 November 1911, Coppé was a founding member of the CVP party and served in the European Commission as Commissioner for Social Affairs, Transport & Budget under the Malfatti & Mansholt Commissions. He also led an interim High Authority in the European Coal and Steel Community in 1967. Coppé died in Tervuren on 30 March 1999. See also *High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community The High Authority was the executive branch of the former European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It was created in 1951 and disbanded in 1967 when it was merged into the European Commission. History The High Authority was at the core of the ... External links * Thprivate papers and some interviewsINT550 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Château Of Val-Duchesse
The Château of Val-Duchesse (french: Château de Val-Duchesse, nl, Kasteel van Hertoginnedal) is a mansion and estate situated in the municipality of Auderghem in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of a former priory, is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust. Val-Duchesse played an important role as a venue for negotiations in Belgian and European politics after World War II. In 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the château, which prepared the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and the foundation of the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1958. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, the first European Commission, under the presidency of Walter Hallstein, was held on 16 January 1958 at the château. From 23-25 April 1990, it hosted the Western European Union International Conference which agreed the sequence of accession of the Eastern European Countries of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intergovernmental Conference On The Common Market And Euratom
{{EU history The Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom was held in Brussels and started on 26 June 1956 with a session in the Grand Salon of the Belgian Foreign Ministry. The negotiations went on at the Château of Val-Duchesse in Auderghem (Brussels) and would continue until March 1957. The conference was held to draft the Treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom). The conference built on the results of the Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee and the decision taken at the Venice Conference to prepare the plan for the establishment of a common market and the establishment of a European Community for the peaceful use of atomic energy. The conference was headed by Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian Foreign Minister, the heads of the delegations from the six European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) were Lodovico Benvenuti (Italy), Count Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers (Belgium), Kar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spaak Committee
The Spaak Committee was an Intergovernmental Committee set up by the Foreign Ministers of the six Member States of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) as a result of the Messina Conference of 1955. The Spaak Committee started its work on 9 July 1955 and ended on 20 April 1956, when the Heads of Delegation of the six Member States of the ECSC approved the Spaak report. The committee worked on two main topics, one was the creation of a general common market and the other one was the establishment of a European Community for the peaceful use of atomic energy. The steering committee was composed of Paul-Henri Spaak, the six heads of delegation from the ECSC member states and a representative, Russell Frederick Bretherton, of the United Kingdom. The different committees examined the common market, investments and social issues, conventional energy, nuclear energy and public transport and public works. In addition several highly specialised subcommittees would then be set up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spaak Report
The Spaak Report or ''Brussels Report on the General Common Market'' is the report drafted by the Spaak Committee in 1956. The Intergovernmental Committee, headed by Paul-Henri Spaak, presented its definitive report on 21 April 1956 to the six governments of the member states of the European Coal and Steel Community. The report formed the cornerstone of the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at Val Duchesse in 1956 and led to the signing, on 25 March 1957, of the Treaties of Rome establishing a European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. Summary The Spaak Report concluded that a sector-by-sector integration of the European economies would be difficult. Instead, a horizontal integration of the economy, by the gradual elimination of trade barriers, seemed to be the way to continue. The goal was to be achieved by creating a customs union. On the integration of the energy sectors, there was a different stance for nuclear energy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Van Zeeland
Paul Guillaume, Viscount van Zeeland (11 November 1893 – 22 September 1973) was a Belgian lawyer, economist, Catholic politician, and statesman born in Soignies. Van Zeeland was a professor of law and later director of the Institute of Economic Science at the Catholic University of Leuven (Leuven), and vice-governor of the National Bank of Belgium. In March 1935, he became the prime minister of a government of national unity (a coalition comprising the three major parties: Catholics, Liberals and Socialists). Given decree powers, he abated a national economic crisis by devaluing the currency and implementing expansive budgetary policies. Van Zeeland's government resigned in the spring of 1936 due to the agitation of Rexism (a Belgian fascist party). On 24 May 1936, a general election took place. The Labour party won 70 of 202 seats (minus 3), Zeeland's Catholic Party 61 seats (minus 18) and the new Rexists 21 seats. Van Zeeland continued as Prime Minister leading a gov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BeNeLux Memorandum, 1955
The Benelux memorandum of 1955 was a document drafted by the three Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) on 18 May 1955 as a means to reviving European integration on the basis of a general common market. Background The failure of the European Defence Community (EDC) and the European Political Community, brought the process of European integration to a standstill in 1954. At that moment Johan Willem Beyen (Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs) took the initiative to revive an idea, based on the Ouchy Convention of 1932, he had already put forward in December 1952 and February 1953 for the European Political Community (EPC). He proposed that the member states of the European Coal and Steel Community would develop a common market without customs duties or import quotas instead of a sector-based integration which had been the option taken by the ECSC. Beyen sent a memorandum to his Benelux colleagues Paul-Henri Spaak (Belgium) and Joseph Bech (Luxembourg) on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Customs Union
A customs union is generally defined as a type of trade bloc which is composed of a free trade area with a common external tariff.GATTArticle 24 s. 8 (a) Customs unions are established through trade pacts where the participant countries set up common external trade policy (in some cases they use different import quotas). Common competition policy is also helpful to avoid ''competition deficiency''. Purposes for establishing a customs union normally include increasing economic efficiency and establishing closer political and cultural ties between the member countries. It is the third stage of economic integration. Every economic union, customs and monetary union and economic and monetary union includes a customs union. WTO definition The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, part of the World Trade Organization framework defines a customs union in the following way: Historical background The German Customs Union, the Zollverein, which was established in 1834, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benelux
The Benelux Union ( nl, Benelux Unie; french: Union Benelux; lb, Benelux-Unioun), also known as simply Benelux, is a politico- economic union and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighboring states in western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name is a portmanteau formed from joining the first few letters of each country's name and was first used to name the customs agreement that initiated the union (signed in 1944). It is now used more generally to refer to the geographic, economic, and cultural grouping of the three countries. The Benelux is an economically dynamic and densely populated region, with 5.6% of the European population (29.55 million residents) and 7.9% of the joint EU GDP (€36,000/resident) on no more than 1.7% of the whole surface of the EU. Currently 37% of the total number of EU frontier workers work in the Benelux and surrounding areas. 35,000 Belgian citizens work in Luxembourg, while 37,000 Belgian citize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Defence Community
The Treaty establishing the European Defence Community, also known as the Treaty of Paris, is an unratified treaty signed on 27 May 1952 by the six 'inner' countries of European integration: the Benelux countries, France, Italy, and West Germany. The treaty would have created a European Defence Community (EDC) with a pan-European defence force. The treaty failed to obtain ratification in the French Parliament and it was never ratified by Italy, so it consequently never entered into force. Instead, the London and Paris Conferences provided for West Germany's accession to NATO and the Western European Union (WEU), the latter of which was a transformed version of the pre-existing Western Union. The treaty was initiated by the Pleven plan, proposed in 1950 by then French Prime Minister René Pleven in response to the American call for the rearmament of West Germany. The formation of a pan-European defence architecture, as an alternative to West Germany's proposed accession to NA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Political Community (1952)
An entity to be named the European Political Community (EPC) was proposed in 1952 as a combination of the existing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the proposed European Defence Community (EDC). A draft EPC treaty, as drawn up by the ECSC assembly (now the European Parliament), would have seen a directly elected assembly ("the Peoples’ Chamber"), a senate appointed by national parliaments and a supranational executive accountable to the parliament. The European Political Community project failed in 1954 when it became clear that the European Defence Community would not be ratified by the French national assembly, which feared that the project entailed an unacceptable loss of national sovereignty. As a result, the European Political Community idea had to be abandoned. Following the collapse of the EPC, European leaders met in the Messina Conference in 1955 and established the Spaak Committee which would pave the way for the creation of the European Economic Commu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
