<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Today part of </Td> <Td> European Union </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="3"> 1 The ECSC treaty expired in 2002, fifty years after it came into force, but its institutions were taken over in 1967 following the Merger Treaty . 2 The political centres were Luxembourg and Strasbourg, later also Brussels . 3Initial founding languages, before the merger and subsequent enlargements, were Dutch, French, German and Italian . </Td> </Tr> <P> The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was an organisation of 6 European countries set up after World War II to regulate their industrial production under a centralised authority . It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg . The ECSC was the first international organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism, and started the process of formal integration which ultimately led to the European Union . </P> <P> The ECSC was first proposed by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany . He declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" which was to be achieved by regional integration, of which the ECSC was the first step . The Treaty would create a common market for coal and steel among its member states which served to neutralise competition between European nations over natural resources, particularly in the Ruhr . </P>

What group laid the foundation for the european union