challenge European Coal and Steel Community in 1920s

Keynes actually proposed something like this in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, and the trade of German coal was part of the Dawes Plan that reformulated reparations owed from Versailles, and ended the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Rhur.

You'd need a much more far-sighted France willing to tolerate economic and particularly industrial recovery in Germany--perhaps as the basis of reparations in general? Even more, I think you'd need an external threat to push such an agreement, as in OTL.

Conveniently, that threat could be from the Bolsheviks and the rise of the Soviet Union. If the end of the war sees multiple communist or at least revolutionary uprisings in Western and Central Europe, along with Poland and Finland falling to the Soviets, you have a very good reason to strengthen Germany as a bulwark, and to promote unity among the European nations in general.
 
Does it have to be based on a capitalist model? If not, a longer First World War, which ends with socialist revolutions in much of continental Europe including Germany and France (definitely a possibility with the rights PODs) could lead to economic integration, especially of badly damaged heavy industrial sectors. Ah, a Communist EU... :D
 
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