Documents

Treaty of Paris (Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community)

Citation Formats

General Reference

Political Atlas. "Treaty of Paris (Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community)." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/treaty-of-paris-ecsc.

APA Style

Political Atlas. (n.d.). Treaty of Paris (Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community). Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/treaty-of-paris-ecsc

BibTeX

@misc{politicalatlas-treaty-of-paris-treaty-establishing-the,
  author = {Political Atlas},
  title = {Treaty of Paris (Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community)},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/treaty-of-paris-ecsc},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Signed in Paris on 18 April 1951 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and in force from 23 July 1952 until its fifty-year term expired on 23 July 2002, this treaty established the European Coal and Steel Community, the founding building block of what became the European Union. It created the Community's Common Assembly, the direct predecessor of today's European Parliament, and its Court of Justice, the direct predecessor of today's Court of Justice of the European Union.

Facts

Year

1951 1

Key Provision

Signed on 18 April 1951 by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and entering into force in 1952, it established the European Coal and Steel Community, pooling the six founding states' coal and steel production, the raw materials of war, under a supranational High Authority empowered to regulate production, prices and competition directly rather than through the member governments. Conceived along the lines of the Schuman Plan, its stated purpose was to make a future war between France and Germany not merely unthinkable but materially impossible, and it is widely treated as the founding act of European integration. 1

Dates

Signed

1951-04-18 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

European Union

Widely regarded as the founding act of the integration process that produced today's European Union.

Source Treaty of Paris (1951) (Wikipedia)

France

This source names France directly: "in Paris on 18 April 1951 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and in force from 23 July 1952 until its fifty-year term expired on 23 July 2002, this treaty..."

Source Treaty of Paris (1951) (Wikipedia)

Germany

This source names Germany directly: "Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and in force from 23 July 1952 until its fifty-year term expired on 23 July 2002, this treaty established the European Coal and Steel Community, the..."

Source Treaty of Paris (1951) (Wikipedia)

Italy

This source names Italy directly: "on 18 April 1951 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany, and in force from 23 July 1952 until its fifty-year term expired on 23 July 2002, this treaty established..."

Source Treaty of Paris (1951) (Wikipedia)

Merger Treaty (Treaty of Brussels, 1965)

Unified the ECSC's High Authority together with the EEC and Euratom Commissions into the single new Commission.

Source Merger Treaty (Wikipedia)