In connection with the European project SMILE, ‘Sharing Messina Ideal a Lesson for all Europe’, an academic meeting about the 1955 Messina Conference was held on 5 June 2015 in Messina.

Jan-Willem Brouwer, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Parliamentary History at Radboud University Nijmegen and a Visiting Lecturer at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, was invited by the CVCE to speak about the role of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Dr Brouwer emphasised the constructive cooperation between the three countries and identified the 1955 Messina Conference as one of the high points of Benelux cooperation. The three countries adopted a joint memorandum and devised a procedure that was followed after the Messina Conference for the revival of European integration that would lead to the Rome Treaties (1955–1957).

The program is available here.