Later that year, Robert Schumann – the French foreign minister at the time and a founding father of European integration – explicitly identified the ECSC with the drive for peace. He described it as a means for creating a “fusion of interests…that will be the leavening from which may grow a wider and deeper community between countries long opposed to one another by bloody conflicts.”
1951年，法国总理Rene Pléven提议设立一个与ECSC相近的欧洲防卫共同体（European Defense Community，简称EDC）。他没有成功，但是这个观点却保留了下来。同年末，罗布特·舒曼（Robert Schumann）——当时的法国外交部长兼欧洲一体化的奠基之父——明确地用推动和平确定了ECSC。他将ECSC描述为“各种利益的融合……它将成为一块酵母，在那些由于流血冲突长期彼此敌对的国家之间培养出一个更为广泛更为深入的共同体。”