The USA and the beginning of the European coal and steel community (1952-1957)

The article is devoted to the US policy toward the European Coal and Steel Community (the ECSC) at the first stage of its establishment. The objective of the study is to analyze economic and political motives of the US government in supporting the ECSC in 1950s, which set up supranational institutions for the fields of coal and steel in Western Europe. The study is based on historical sources, such as documents of the US State Department and American diplomats' memoirs. The author concludes that the USA encouraged the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 not because of political matters only, but also in order to promote a common market, fee of trade barriers. Most American supporters of the ECSC project believed that integration would expand beyond coal and steel and it would serve as a first step toward deeper European integration. At the same time, there were some concerns among American diplomats that the participating countries would try to rebuild pre-war cartels in Europe. In that regard, American experts insisted on the anti-cartel provisions to be included in the Treaty of 1951. The European Coal and Steel Community created a framework of rules that banned cartels, eliminated subsidies and forbade price discrimination. The High Authority of the ECSC was authorized to deal with restrictive arrangements and to take an anti-trust action. However, in 1950s the ECSC rules were regularly ignored by European firms and governments. In fact, the steel producers of the European Coal and Steel Community have established a cartel to fix minimum prices for export from the Community. Although the US government tried to discuss the case of the export cartel with the ECSC' members, no positive results were accomplished. The author came to conclusion that the USA's attempts to support the High Authority in the dismantling of the cartels have failed. European governments were concerned with facilitating national industrial growth, not with American plans of economic liberalization. However, while the Community's progress in combating restrictive practice had been slow, American government continued to support European integration on the whole. That support was indirect, because American intervention was politically risky and could be seen as an American attempt to reshape Europe, rather than a European project. But in second half of 1950s, after the collapse of the European Defense Community, the US government became more active in promoting further economic integration.

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