The failure of the European Defense Community: A discussion between the past and future of European defense
By Irene Bonzi
Introduction
In light of the renewed discussions around European rearmament and common defense strategies – in the aftermath of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine and the growingly cold transatlantic relations under D. Trump – it is essential to go back and revisit the roots of common defense in Europe. The European Defense Community (EDC) marked the first attempt to create a common European defense framework, emerged in parallel with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. In 1950, the European federalists Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman pressed French Prime Minister René Pléven to propose a common European defence initiative at the Council of Europe in 1951. Three years later, the French Assemblée Nationale struck down its own project.
Today, it is more important than ever to understand the failure of the EDC and the consequences it entailed. Despite the growing security threats, the fear of rearmament - and especially of German rearmament - prevented Europe from building a common defense system that today many long for. At the heart of this failure, however, was the ambition of the nation states to make sovereignty prevail over the federal character of the European project.
This brief historical article seeks to explore the framework of the EDC treaty, the sovereign ambitions – especially France’s – that derailed it, and the European Union that resulted from these processes. The failures of the past can offer insight about who we are today as a European community but also how to move forward from there.
The European Defense Community framework
No European citizen today associates the EU with military defense. The naïveté developed over seventy years of peace – what J. L. Gaddis called the “long peace” (Gaddis, 1989), overlooking the bloodshed of the proxy conflicts around the globe – led Europe into an oblivion regarding the growing geopolitical, economic and defense challenges the continent has faced in the past decades. It is therefore interesting to briefly delve into the framework of the EDC, the first and only structured attempt at a truly shared European defense framework.
The French proposal for the EDC in 1950 was primarily a response to American pressures for German rearmament (Griffiths, 2020), which in their view was the only credible deterrent to a Soviet attack. Just five years after the end of World War II, the prospect of a rearmed Germany alarmed many, above all France – Germany’s longtime enemy. Presenting the plan for the EDC at the Council of Europe in 1950 French PM René Pléven said that “[...] Any system that led, whether immediately or eventually, directly or not, with or without conditions, to the creation of a German army would give rise to renewed distrust and suspicion. The formation of German divisions, of a German Ministry of Defence, would sooner or later be bound to lead to the rebuilding of a national army and, by that token, to the revival of German militarism. [...]”. Pléven, under pressures from Schuman and Monnet, therefore presented a plan for a supranational European army in the context of the EDC to embed German rearmament in a European/federal program.
The proposal also was a response to the growing military tensions in the world, with the beginning of the Korean War, and to the threat represented by the USSR military and its expanding nuclear force. In fact, in 1949 the USSR ran its first nuclear test. The Pléven plan addressed both these issues at once, and can be best described through his own words: “A European army cannot be created simply placing national military units side by side. [...] A united European army, made up of forces from the various European nations must, as far as possible, pool all of its human and material components under a single political and military European authority.”. The EDC was designed to be a truly European, supranational project.
The EDC treaty outlined the creation of a supranational framework, the institution, forces, and budget of which would be shared by the participants. It presents itself as a mutual defense treaty, replicating the NATO framework, in which military forces put in place would be the product of a supranational institutional structure. The EDC treaty sought to create not only a common security framework but also an institutional structure to embed it in (Griffiths, 2020). The treaty presents the figure of a European defense minister, supervising three new organs: a Council of Ministers, a Common Assembly, a Commissariat, and a Court of Justice. The armed forces would be under the unified control of the Minister, whilst nation states would retain control over national defense and command structures (Griffiths, 2020).
This design would have prevented the birth of a German army or German high-command, whilst exploiting the German military force as requested by the US to strengthen the security structure on the continent. The treaty that created the EDC was signed on May 27, 1952, in Paris. After the signature, the document was sent to the parliaments of all the signatory states to be ratified. The signatory countries were set to give birth to a truly federal Europe.
The prevalence of national sovereign ambitions
In 1954, the Assemblée Nationale rejected the very plan that French representatives had championed in Europe four years earlier. Many have tried to make sense of this shift, analyzing the intense debate that unfolded in the République. What happened in France reflects a broader conversation and a feeling that was taking place across Europe, which put forth the desire of protecting national identities and of warding the independence of nation-states from European federalism.
The United States had strongly encouraged European countries to replicate their federal model. The White House saw the old continent as destined to never-ending conflicts, as the fragmentation into single states would mean continuous rivalries around resources (Gavin, 2008). Eisenhower in 1951 wrote “[...] It is scarcely necessary to enumerate the problems that arise out of or are exaggerated by the division of West Europe into so many sovereign nations. [...] I think that the real and bitter problems of today would instantly come within the limits of capabilities in solving them if we had this single government! [...]” (Gavin, 2008). Ultimately, the American vision for Europe did not succeed.
Examining the rise of French nationalism in 1954 reveals deeper national identity aspirations that resonated throughout Europe, which came to fundamentally shape the EU of today. An extremely hot debate was born in France between 1951 and 1954, dividing the population into those who saw the EDC as an opportunity for French development and those who deemed it a futile risk. Ultimately the latter prevailed.
In the aftermath of WWII France emerged weakened (Gavin, 2008), not having played any role in the post-war conferences and had an economic structure in shatters. While Schuman and Pléven saw the EDC as both a means to control German rearmament and a chance to rebuild the French state, the short yet impactful eight-months government of Pierre Mendès (Britannica) only saw the dismantling of nation-states. Charles de Gaulle called the EDC “un essai d’abdication nationale” (an attempt at national abdication) (CVCE, 2013). In 1950, the French political elites believed that a WWIII was imminent; in 1954 the belief had faded (Raflik, 2022) and the protection of national sovereignty instead became the priority.
With a majority of 319 to 264 on the 30th of August 1954, the Assemblée Nationale killed the most advanced European defense project to date. The New York Times (1954) called it “[...] the greatest post-war triumph for Soviet policy [...]”. Had 30 more votes gone the other way, the EU might have looked very different today.
French national sovereign forces also would come into play around the issue of atomic energy. In the 1950s conversations in Europe around nuclear cooperation aimed at promoting research for nuclear energy in Europe and potentially a shared nuclear umbrella. In 1952 France had started a five-year research initiative on nuclear energy, and it was clear that Paris’ agreement to the European project would be conditional on its ability to continue its national endeavour (CVCE, 2016). Ultimately, the other signatory governments had to yield to the French intentions of not disclosing information about their nuclear project and/or giving up their research project. In 1957 France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in the continent signed the Treaty of Rome founding the European Atomic Energy Community (founding at the same time the European Economic Community), which concerned only civilian nuclear power and did not encompass military usage. In 1959 France tested its first nuclear weapon (CIA, 1959). To this day, France is the only country in the European Union with a nuclear arsenal (around 410 weapons), and - until Macron’s announcement in March 2025 (Schofield, 2025) - never extended its nuclear umbrella to any other country.
Conclusion - The EU after the ECD, and what’s to come
The failure of the ECD paved the way for a reimagined European integration project – one in which common military defense was deprioritized in favor of economic and political cooperation. The defense of the continent slipped in the background, overshadowed by the distinct security threats of individual countries. Most European countries agree on the menace represented by issues such as terrorism, cybersecurity and the increasing pressures from Russia, but the post-ECD EU has lacked a unified strategic response. France may prioritize terrorism; Italy migration; Poland and Eastern European countries, Russia. Each nation confronts what it perceives as its primary threat - alone.
In 1954, when the French Assemblée Nationale voted to strike down the EDC, it gave birth to a union of individualist nations that, for seventy years, gave for granted that the United States would always be their ultimate protector. The defense of European soil was fully outsourced to NATO (Raflik, 2022), and therefore became a domain relegated to transnational cooperation. Yet today, relying on the United States as the only defense guarantee would be a short-sighted, anachronistic mistake.
European countries must accept the idea that their future and their destiny is a shared one, a shared right and a shared responsibility. The issue of European defense is not much a military problem as it is a political one. Since the times of the EDC the issue has been creating a common strategic vision which transcends individual nation states (Degryse, 2025). The aforementioned New York Times article (1954) in its final remark states that “[...] the idea of European unification will live and flower when the present wreckers of it have sunk into oblivion.”. The potential still remains, still waiting for the political courage to bring it to life.
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