Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom
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{{EU history The Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom was held in
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
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 The Château of Val-Duchesse ( ; ) is a château and estate in the municipality of Auderghem in Brussels, Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of a former priory, is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust. History The priory for women ...
in
Auderghem Auderghem ( French, ; former Dutch spelling) or Oudergem ( Dutch, ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the south-eastern part of the region, along the Woluwe valley and at the entrance to the ...
(Brussels) and would continue until March 1957. The conference was held to draft the Treaties establishing the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
(EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom). The conference built on the results of the Spaak Report of the
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 o ...
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 Paul-Henri Charles Spaak (; 25 January 1899 – 31 July 1972) was an influential Belgian Socialist politician, diplomat and statesman who thrice served as the prime minister of Belgium and later as the second secretary general of NATO. Nicknam ...
, Belgian Foreign Minister, the heads of the delegations from the six
European Coal and Steel Community The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to integrate Europe's coal and steel industries into a single common market based on the principle of supranationalism which would be governe ...
(ECSC) were Lodovico Benvenuti (Italy), Count Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers (Belgium), Karl Friedrich Ophüls (Federal Republic of Germany), Maurice Faure (France), Johan Linthorst Homan (Netherlands) and Lambert Schaus (Luxembourg).


Common market

The basic principle of the common market was agreed upon by the six ECSC members, but there was wide disagreement about the procedures for its implementation. Both Germany and the three
Benelux The Benelux Union (; ; ; ) or Benelux is a politico-economic union, alliance and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighbouring states in Western Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name is a portma ...
countries, with their export-oriented economies, favoured
economic liberalism Economic liberalism is a political and economic ideology that supports a market economy based on individualism and private property in the means of production. Adam Smith is considered one of the primary initial writers on economic liberalism ...
and wanted to reduce custom duties in order to lower the barriers for trade between the participating countries. On the other side stood France and Italy, with their less competitive economies, which were primarily in favour of a mechanism for market regulation and a certain amount of protection for external competition. France wanted some way to include its African colonial in the forthcoming European common market. The participants of the conference could not reach a satisfactory agreement on a common agricultural
policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...
, but the outcome of the conference provided for improvement in productivity, self-sufficiency in food for the community and the establishment of an adequate
income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...
for farmers.


Euratom

The negotiations on Euratom were complicated by the French opposition against any power of Euratom on the military use of nuclear power that might hinder the acquisition of
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
s for France. France wanted to share the cost of the development of civil nuclear research with Euratom, which would free financial resources for its own military nuclear research. Although the other countries were reluctant to accept that stance, in the end they agreed to leave the military use of nuclear research out of the treaty, subject to international controls. The US also opposed the emergence of an independent European nuclear force. The
Suez crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...
of 1956, which exposed the vulnerability of Europe regarding its energy supplies had an influence on the negotiations.


Outcome

The conference would lead to the
Treaties of Rome The Treaty of Rome, or EEC Treaty (officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community), brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), the best known of the European Communities (EC). The treaty was signe ...
being signed on 25 March 1957. They established the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
(EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) among the members of the ECSC.


See also

*
History of the European Union The European Union is a geo-political entity, created in 1993, covering a large portion of the European continent. It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions and secessions that have taken it from six member states to 27, ...
* BeNeLux memorandum, 1955 *
Spaak method The Spaak method of negotiation is named after Paul-Henri Spaak, a Belgian politician, who applied this method at the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom in 1956 at Val Duchesse castle in preparing for the Treaties of Ro ...
* Ohlin Report


Sources


Negotiations on the EEC and Euratom


* Raymond Bertrand, ''The European Common Market Proposal'', International Organization, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Nov. 1956), pp. 559–574. * Pierre-Henri Laurent, ''Paul-Henri Spaak and the Diplomatic Origins of the Common Market, 1955–1956'', Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Sep. 1970), pp. 373–396 European Union History of the European Union European Atomic Energy Community