On 18 April 1951, in Paris, the Foreign Ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Italy and the Netherlands sign the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). From left to right: Étienne Hirsch, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and Pierre Uri.

Dans ses Mémoires, Jean Monnet décrit le texte du traité de Paris instituant la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier (CECA).

Group photograph taken at the signing of the Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. From left to right: Paul van Zeeland (B), Joseph Bech (L), Joseph Meurice (B), Carlo Sforza (I), Robert Schuman (F), Konrad Adenauer (BRD), Dirk Stikker (NL) and Johannes van den Brink (NL).

On 18 April 1951, the Foreign Ministers of the Six issue a joint statement in which they emphasise the importance of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) which they recently signed in Paris.

On 18 April 1951, in Paris, Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister, signs the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).

‘Six Ministers board the same boat’. On 19 April 1951, German cartoonist Wand illustrates the historical significance of the signing of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) by the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

On the day after the signing of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community in Paris on 18 April 1951, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer sends a letter to Robert Schuman in which he expresses his hope that the Schuman Plan might become the basis for Franco–German reconciliation.

On 10 June 1959, German Federal President Theodor Heuss awards the Federal Cross of Merit to Robert Schuman, President of the European Parliamentary Assembly, for his action to promote European unity. To mark the occasion, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer gives an address in which he praises Robert Schuman’s European commitment in the implementation of the plan for a European Coal and Steel Community.

‘The Schuman Plan. A fine paper … offering really quite … improbable … opportunities.’ In 1951, Ernst Maria Lang, German cartoonist, takes an ironic view of the opportunities that the Schuman Plan offers the Franco-German duo, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer.

On 28 April 1951, in an address given at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Walter Hallstein, State Secretary at the German Foreign Office, gives details of the numerous economic, political and institutional implications of the Schuman Plan.