Table displaying the votes cast during ratification of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the National Assemblies of the Six.
On 25 September 1951, in an article published in the Belgian Socialist newspaper Le Peuple, political journalist Victor Larock harshly criticises the intentionally intergovernmentalist interpretation made by Belgian Foreign Minister Paul van Zeeland of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).
On 30 January 1952, the Belgian Senate debates the question of the ratification of the Paris Treaty of 18 April 1951 establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).
The high proportion of abstentions during ratification in the Senate on 5 February 1952 was due to the Socialists, who feared that the Belgian mining industry was not adapted to the new conditions defined by the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.
In its September–October 1951 edition, the Revue Franco–Belge, official mouthpiece of the Belgian Chamber of Commerce in Paris, publishes an article by Pierre van der Rest, chief representative of the Steelworkers’ Committee, which analyses the socio-economic impact of the Schuman Plan on industry in Belgium.
In 1951, Pierre Delville, Director General of the company Evence Coppée et Cie and Chairman of the Association Charbonnière du Centre (Centre Coal Association), considers the impact of the Schuman Plan on the Belgian coal industry.
In 1951, Fernand Baudhuin, Professor of Economics at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), outlines the position of the industrial and coal-producing sectors in the light of the future implementation of the Schuman Plan.
In 1951, the Belgian Federation of Coal Associations publishes a brochure criticising the risks of the Schuman Plan for the country’s economy, and outlines the main shortcomings of the ECSC Treaty.
In 1952, writing in the French magazine Notre Europe, Fernand Dehousse, a Belgian Socialist Senator and militant pro-European, sets out the stance taken by Belgium on the Schuman Plan.
‘General Treaty: the Schuman Plan — the Ruhr armoury of the USA. “Traitors sign, but the German people will put a stop to their little game.”’ On 10 January 1952, the East Berlin daily newspaper Tägliche Rundschau condemns the ratification of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) by the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
