In Rome's Palazzo dei Conservatori, leaders of West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg signed the treaty establishing the EEC, a common market designed to bind former wartime enemies through economic interdependence. It took effect on January 1, 1958, and became the legal ancestor of the modern European Union, fundamentally reshaping postwar European politics.
Only twelve years after the end of a war that had killed tens of millions across the continent, representatives of France and West Germany sat at the same table to sign away portions of their economic sovereignty, betting that trade could accomplish what treaties of mere peace could not: making future war between them practically unthinkable.
The signing ceremony itself was almost comically human. The final treaty text wasn't ready in time, so the dignitaries signed blank pages, with the actual document to be bound in later. Photographs show Konrad Adenauer, Christian Pineau, Antonio Segni, and others signing with theatrical solemnity, well aware of the historical weight of the moment, even as papal Rome and ancient imperial symbolism lent the ceremony an air of deliberate grandeur, positioning the new community as heir to a older, unified Europe.