The start of European integration and the parliamentary dimension: the Common Assembly of the ECSC (1952–1958)

Abstract

SUMMARY This article examines the development of the role of the Common Assembly, the parliamentary assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community. This assembly, which was composed of seventy-eight members appointed to yearly terms by the national parliaments, was the institution least privileged in the 1951 ECSC Treaty of Paris. It had no legislative powers and could only perform a function of control over the action of the High Authority. But from the outset, the Common Assembly sought to strengthen its role by exploiting the spaces granted it by the Treaty as much as it could. It set up a system of standing committees, and in addition to its ordinary session, it held extraordinary sessions. A very important factor of its development was the formation and consolidation of the transnational political groups. If the national element dominated the first meetings of the Common Assembly, over time the political affinities took precedence over national origin. The Common Assembly devoted great attention to developing its administrative structure as well. So, starting from a position of clear disadvantage, the ECSC Common Assembly managed to conquer broader space in the Community's institutional dialectic.