Johan Willem Beyen - Founder of European Integration

Founder of European Integration

Wim Beyen played a very important role in the creation of the European Economic Community.

In August 1954 the plans had collapsed to create a European Political Community and a common defence force, the European Defence Community, as a substitute for the national armies of France, Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries, when France refused to ratify the Treaty.

Beyen realized that European integration in the political field would be impossible in the near future. He was convinced that had to be begun with economic cooperation, and developed a plan that called for a European common market, combined with the idea of a political community. He was in favour of horizontal integration instead of continuing with a sector by sector integration along the lines of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).

On 4 April 1955 he sent a memorandum to his BeNeLux colleagues Paul-Henri Spaak (Belgium) and Joseph Bech (Luxembourg) in which he proposed his idea of a customs union. In a meeting of the three Foreign Ministers of the BeNeLux in The Hague on 23 April 1955 they drafted a joint memorandum to present to their colleagues of the ECSC. They finalized the memorandum (the BeNeLux memorandum) on 18 May 1955 and presented it to the governments of France, Germany and Italy on 20 May 1955. They proposed to discuss in a conference of the six participating countries of the ECSC the way towards a general integration of the European economy.

This conference, the Messina Conference, was held from 1 to 3 June 1955. Beyen headed the Dutch delegation. The final resolution of the conference largely reflected Beyen's point of view. It formed the basis for further work to relaunch European integration and would lead to the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and the formation of the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1958.