Rebuilding Europe
“After various false starts, in 1951 six nations at the heart of modern Europe, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy, formed a ‘Coal and Steel Community.’ Talks began about founding something much bigger, an economic community with internal free trade and common tariffs on imports. This became the ‘common market,’ a much-expanded version of which is the modern EU. In 1956, these six nations decided to issue a common set of stamps, all with the same design. This showed ‘Europe’ as a mighty (but monolithic) tower still under construction. The designer was Frenchman Daniel Gonzague: fitting, as France was the undisputed leader of the new community. Five of the nations issued two stamps each. Luxembourg, from the start the keenest cheerleader for European unity, issued three denominations. The Romanian government in exile (Romania itself was a Communist dictatorship at that time) produced its own version of the stamp, showing the tower crumbling and surrounded with barbed wire, and with text that read ‘Europe cannot live without her Eastern countries’”
Stamp Collector, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2019
