On 31 October 1949, at the 75th meeting of the Council of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), Paul Hoffmann, US Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the body responsible for distributing the funds granted under the Marshall Plan, calls on the countries of Western Europe to work towards greater union and to integrate their economies within a large single European market.

On 16 April 1948, in Paris, the representatives of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom and the Commanders-in-Chief of the French, British and US occupation zones in Germany sign the Convention establishing the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), which enters into force on 1 July 1948.