A Political and Economic Dictionary of Western Europe, First Edition
Robert Schuman was a Luxembourg-born politician and statesman. As foreign minister of France, he drew up the Schuman Plan which led to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. In the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 it was proposed that French and German production of coal and steel should be pooled and managed by a single High Authority.
Schuman also announced that this arrangement should be opened to other countries as a first step towards economic integration in Europe, and as a way of preventing future wars. Robert Schuman is, with Jean Monnet, considered to be one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
Born in 1886 in Clausen, Luxembourg, into a bilingual family, Schuman studied law at the Universities of Berlin, Munich, Bonn and Strasbourg. He worked as a lawyer in Alsace-Lorraine and became active in French politics as a member of parliament first for Moselle, and then for Thionville East. Following the Second World War, Schuman served as Prime Minister of France in 1947–48, and was foreign minister in 1948–53.
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