2007 Europe Day celebration

On 9 May 1950 in Paris, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman read to the international press a declaration calling France, Germany and other European countries to pool together their coal and steel production as "the first concrete foundation of a European federation". The declaration, issued against the background of the threat of a Third World War engulfing the whole of Europe, is considered to be the first move towards the creation of what is now known as the European Union. Mr Schuman proposed the creation of a supranational European Institution, the High Authority, to look after the management of the coal and steel industry, the very sector which was, at that time, the basis of all military power. The countries which he called upon had almost destroyed each other in a dreadful conflict which had left after it a sense of material and moral desolation. During the Milan Summit in 1985, the EU leaders decided to celebrate 9 May as "Europe Day".