The foundation stone of a European Community was laid by the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman, in his declaration of 9 May 1950, in which he put forward the plan he had worked out with Jean Monnet to pool Europe’s coal and steel industries. He made history by putting to the Federal Republic of Germany, and to other European countries who so wished, the idea of creating a community of pacific interests. In so doing he extended a hand to yesterday’s enemies and erased the bitterness of war and the burden of the past. In addition, he set completely new process in international relations by proposing to old nations together to recover, by exercising jointly their sovereignty, the influence which each of them was incapable by exercising alone.