 such as the Saar region, where Hitler had first tested European will and found it weak. With the end of the war, coal emerged once again as a point of dangerous contention. "Old King Coal is the economic tyrant of Europe," TIME commented in 1952. "On both sides of the Iron Curtain, he chills the poor, rocks governments, distorts economies and hampers rearmament." The declared goal of the ECSC was to establish "the basis for broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts; and to lay the foundations for institutions which will give direction to a destiny henceforward shared." That language had more to do with the prevention of war than with the regulation of coal and steel production-which is just as well, because the ECSC never fully succeeded in subsuming national rivalries to broader community goals. Nevertheless, it established the pattern of "practical achievements" that produced the document that is modern Europe's constitution: the Treaty of Rome. |
In keeping with Monnet's piecemeal style, the treaty, signed on March 25, 1957, dealt mainly with mundane agricultural policy for six member nations: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Though the "Common Agricultural Policy" soon became notorious for its huge costs and subsidy-created "wine lakes," the Rome treaty set forth the principles for a united Europe. The treaty comprises 248 articles, but its essence is known as the Four Freedoms: freedom of movement for goods, people, services and capital. Though less grand than a U.S.-style bill of rights, this simple principle of porous borders suited the Monnet style of gradualism. It created a kind of bureaucratic road map that pointed wary Europeans toward unity but did not shove them-a process that continues to this day.
Much of the success of Monnet and his busy, bureaucratic colleagues was owing to their very obscurity. Monnet himself never assumed a ministerial portfolio. His loftiest title was president of the high authority of the ECSC, which he held for only three years before  3 of 5
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