Schuman Plan and Reality
Last week's meeting in Paris of the Foreign Ministers of the six countries taking part in the Schuman Plan certainly managed to give an impression of brisk activity. M. Schuman himself jerked the gathering quite rudely to a sense of reality by proposing outright that the headquarters of the coal and steel pool should be in Saarbrticken, thus putting the vexed question of the future of the Saar right in the forefront of discussion—which is of course where it should be. The question was not settled. It was decided that temporary head- quarters for the pool should be set up in Luxembourg. But at least the French Government is faced with the chance to loosen its hold on the economic life of the Saar, and the West German Government in its turn is given the opportunity to modify its claim to the ultimate inclusion of the Saar territory in Germany. The ball has been set rolling rather faster than anyone expected and the political implications of the originally economic Schuman Plan are clear from the start. And since that paragon of energy and initiative, M. Jean Monnet, is now confirmed in his position of President of the Executive of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community it may not be long before the Community has acquired an administrative machine that works. But the real test comes when it has some real material to work on—that is to say when the attempt is made to fit the existing industrial enter- prises producing coal and steel into a co-ordinated body. And that test may not come yet. According to the Treaty, now ratified and going into effect, there is to be a " preparatory period " of indefinite length in which a common market is to be created and after that a " transition period " of five years, at the end of which, if all goes well, the Community will be in full being. There are obvious opportunities for delay and obstruction, as well as for adaptation and construction. It is now up to M. Monnet and the Governments concerned to show whether the Schuman Plan can be made to work.
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