Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom

The Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom was held in Brussels and started on 26 June 1956 with a session in the Grand Salon of the Belgian Foreign Ministry.

The conference was headed by Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian Foreign Minister, the heads of the delegations from the six European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) were Lodovico Benvenuti (Italy), Count Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers (Belgium), Karl Friedrich Ophüls (Federal Republic of Germany), Maurice Faure (France), Johan Linthorst Homan (Netherlands) and Lambert Schaus (Luxembourg).

The basic principle of the common market was agreed upon by the six ECSC members, but there was wide disagreement about the procedures for its implementation.

France wanted some way to include its African colonial in the forthcoming European common market.

Although the other countries were reluctant to accept that stance, in the end they agreed to leave the military use of nuclear research out of the treaty, subject to international controls.