If the UK Signed the Treaty of Paris (1951)

How might British history have been different if they had joined the European Coal and Steel Community at its beginning? Suppose the Conservatives had won the 1950 general election and so weren't so constrained by Labour's commitment to what the unions wanted.
 
Well I guess that means that the UK will be a member of the
European Economic Community [EEC] so the EU would be a very different Beast today.
Id like to see a timeline about this
:)
 

Fenlander

Banned
Over De Gaulle's dead body.
I guess if you can remove him from the equation there's no way the Common Agricultural Policy is happening in its current form. That was always De Gaulle's big worry besides his minor anglophobia - that they would mess with his great plan to transfer money from the pockets of German factory workers into the pockets of French farmers. British farms tend to be smaller and more efficient than continental ones due to lack of space, and as such don't qualify for CAP money.
The whole point of the CAP is to
(a) prop up France's bloated agricultural sector
(b) make Europe self-sufficient in food to prevent a repeat of the blockade of WWII
No chance of that with the UK involved from the start.
 
Over De Gaulle's dead body.
I guess if you can remove him from the equation there's no way the Common Agricultural Policy is happening in its current form. That was always De Gaulle's big worry besides his minor anglophobia - that they would mess with his great plan to transfer money from the pockets of German factory workers into the pockets of French farmers. British farms tend to be smaller and more efficient than continental ones due to lack of space, and as such don't qualify for CAP money.
The whole point of the CAP is to
(a) prop up France's bloated agricultural sector
(b) make Europe self-sufficient in food to prevent a repeat of the blockade of WWII
No chance of that with the UK involved from the start.

You do know that de Gaulle wasn't in politics at that time, right? He left office in 1946, and wouldn't get back until 1958...
And we're talking about a 1951 POD...
 
How might British history have been different if they had joined the European Coal and Steel Community at its beginning? Suppose the Conservatives had won the 1950 general election and so weren't so constrained by Labour's commitment to what the unions wanted.
The problem was that IIRC whilst Churchill was all in favour of the continent coming together he didn't see Britain actually becoming a part of a federal Europe looking more towards the Commonwealth and international trade alongside trade with Europe. The best I think you can hope for is that Britain sends a delegation as observers during the talks that led to the European Coal and Steel Community, then following on from that becomes more involved with the early discussions about the European Economic Community and signs the Treaty of Rome. Even that would still need a number of changes from our timeline, Britain would be looking to keep it more as a free trade organisation without any talk of ever closer union and more likely to favour France's more intergovernmental views.
 
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