Robert Schuman

Schuman, of France's Popular Republican Movement, was a devout Catholic who spoke of reconciliation with Germany in moral terms, but his 1950 declaration was practical: pool French and German coal and steel under a common High Authority so that war between them became "materially impossible". Christian Democrats in Bonn, Rome and the Benelux shared his outlook, which is why critics on the left long saw early integration as a Catholic project; Gaullists objected to the loss of sovereignty.