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The Schuman Plan and Franco-British relations
The Schuman proposal took the British authorities completely by surprise. It must be said that at no point during the preparation of the plan did Jean Monnet or Robert Schuman deem it appropriate to approach the British, who they sensed would have reservations over the matter. The secret was so well kept that even René Massigli, French Ambassador to London, was not let in on the plan. However, Massigli was entrusted with the difficult job of outlining the scope of the Schuman Plan to his British interlocutors and, if possible, persuading them to take part. The British reaction was not slow in coming. The British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin — doubtless aggrieved at not having been consulted, while the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and the US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, had already given their go-ahead — immediately expressed his discontent to his close colleagues. He lamented the attitude of the Quai d’Orsay all the more because the United Kingdom, the occupying power in the Ruhr region, was France’s primary partner in Western Union, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) and the Council of Europe. Furthermore, Britain, a country whose Labour governments had launched a process of nationalisation of the coal, iron and steel industries following the end of the war, was also one of Europe’s major in (...) Read more in ENA |
