American official policy particularly with regard to the Marshall Plan and getting Europe back on her feet, was to encourage free trade in Western Europe. Such thinking led to the development of schemes for the freeing of trade such as Fritalux and Finebel, neither of which were a success. The Western hemispheres fear of the spread of communism led to the signing of the Treaty of Brussels in March 1948, which set up a Western European Union with Britain, France and the Benelux as members. A congress held in the Hague in May 1948 gave rise to the the European movement. In 1949 the agreements on the North Atlantic Traty and the International Ruhr Authority were signed and the FRG was constituted as was the Council of Europe and in 1950 the European Payments Union was established by the OEEC to take the place of the very complicated FINEBEL. However each of these were independent developments, as yet there was no common approach to the real problem in Europe, Germany. By May 1949 the IRA was already showing its lack of powers, so Dean Acheson, USSecretary of State put an ultimatum to Robert Schuman, to devise a policy on Germany, which would solve the problem of the Saar for the next Foreign Ministers meeting of western occuping powers for May 1950. Monnet used the opportunity of solving the Franco-German problem by a Supranational solution. The idea which became known as the Schuman Plan was worked out by Monnet with the help of Pierre Uri, Etienne Hirsch and the international lawyer Paul Reuter. The Schuman declaration proposed the pooling of German-French coal and steel resources under the regulation of a High Authority with independent powers. Adenauer accepted the declaration as a means of integrating Germany back into Europe, the UK were initially shocked at the speed and secrecy, and rejected it on the grounds of its supranational aspect, plus she wanted to maintain the sterling area, her commonwealth trade and the Atlantic alliance. François Duchêne comments that the most extraordinary aspect of the declaration was that it was formulated by an outsider to the Quai d'Orsay, "That an interloper negotiated the most long-headed French initiative in foreign policy of the century shows how far the Schuman Plan flouted tradition". Disillusionment with the OEEC and the Council of Europe as instruments for solving fundamental economic problems confrontingEuropean countries, gave the Schuman Plan a greater chance of survival.

The originals are held in various Archives in Europe and in the USA

"Jean Monnet - First Statesman of Interdependence", François Duchêne, New York, 1994 No Photcopying