The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims.

Schuman (2003, p. 2), went on the offer more details as to how the new ECSC would operate, to wit:

In contrast to international cartels, which tend to impose restrictive practices on distribution and the exploitation of national markets, and to maintain high profits, the organization will ensure the fusion of markets and the expansion of production.

The ECSC has been identified as an immediate success. Van Oudenaren (1999) as well as Anthony Sampson (1968) take the position that the elimination of barriers to trade in the coal and steel sectors not only contributed to the European economic resurgence of the early 1950s. Perhaps more significantly, this mechan

The Treaty establishing the European Defence Community (EDC) is signed in Paris.

http://europa.eu.int/abc/symbols/9-may/dec1_en.htm.

Schuman, R. (2003). Declaration of 9 May 1950. Available at

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 241-272.

What this means, in essence, is that Europeans are disappointed because the rise in the value of the euro has not been accompanied by anticipated domestic economic gains, leading to diminished confidence in the euro and, more significantly, downward pressure on growth and inflation expectations now being exerted by the euro (Fifield & Major, 2004). For EU members that have not yet begun to participate in the euro regime, and for ACs hoping for full membership, the euro does not seem promising; it is difficult for autonomous nation-states to put domestic growth and development in ôsecond placeö vis-a-vis a currency regime.