146 



cept of European joint action and also to the national interests of the 

 United States. 



Unification in Europe 



Alter the crisis of initial survival had passed, the remaining 

 problems facing the governments of Western Europe were three- 

 fold : 



(1) To develop an effective system of collective security; 



(2) To sustain economic stability ; and 



( :; ) To foster further industrial development, 

 U.S. foreign policy toward European recovery received another, 

 largely unanticipated, technological shock in 1949 when the Soviet 

 Union detonated its first atomic explosive. Four years later the 

 U.S.S.R. tested its first hydrogen bomb. 24 As the Soviet Union began 

 to acquire a nuclear arsenal, the nations of Western Europe, saw rea- 

 son to seek unity in their future dealings with the Soviet bloc. A uni- 

 fied or federated Western Europe also might hope to emerge as an 

 independent global power, capable of exercising substantia] influ- 

 ence in world affairs independently of the United States or the Soviet 

 Union. The European approach to unity featured the creation of three 

 international communities: a coal and steel community, a common 

 market, and a nuclear power community. 



The European Coal mid Steel Com in mi ity 



A major step toward the goal of European unity was taken when 

 West Germany, France. Italy, and the Benelux countries ( Belgium, 

 Luxembourg and the Netherlands) ratified the Treaty of Paris on 

 July 25, L952, and brought the European Coal and Steel Community 

 ( EUSC) into force as an independent multinational organization. The 

 treaty required that the six members remove all tariff and other bar- 

 riers to the free movement of coal, iron ore, and steel within two years, 

 and abolish all discrimination against imports from other members. 

 Max Beloff of the Brookings Institution sees the importance of this 

 multinational organization in the impetus it gave to Western Euro- 

 pean cooperation and integration in political and defense matters. 25 



Tin- Euro/" mi Economic Community 



Within a few years the example of the Coal and Steel Community 

 led to the formation of two additional communities: a European com- 

 mon market . and an atomic energx community. 



The starting point for these ventures was a conference of the for- 

 eign ministers of the ECSC nations at Messina in June 1955, shortly 

 before the opening of the United Nation's first international confer- 

 ence on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Two years later the Treaty 

 of Rome was signed, on March 25, L957, establishing the European 

 Economic Community (EEC), commonly known as the Common 

 Market. The treaty came into force on January 1. l!>f>8. 



The aims of the Common Market are to promote a harmonious 

 development of economic activity and cooperation among its members 

 through gradual elimination of financial and physical restrictions on 

 the free movement of goods, capital, and workers among member 

 countries: the harmonization of economic policies; and the consolida 



« December R, 1953 



!»M:i\ Beloff, 77" United States <m<! th< Unity of Europe (Washington, D.C. : The 



Brook i n gs Institution. 1963), p. »'■ 1 



