The origins and early history of Euratom, 1955-1968

This reconstructs the political, economic and technological dynamics that produced Euratom between 1955 and 1968 and explains its subsequent failure to realise an integrated European nuclear industry. He shows that Euratom emerged as the post‑EDC vehicle for relaunching European integration, tactically paired with the proposed common market to entice a sceptical France and bind the FRG within a controlled nuclear framework. The negotiations were shaped by widespread mid‑1950s optimism about “big science”, fears of energy scarcity and dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and shifting US non‑proliferation and export policy. O’Driscoll dismantles two myths: that Monnet alone invented nuclear integration, and that nuclear energy was “virgin territory” devoid of entrenched national interests. It traces how deep Franco‑German economic and security divergences over enrichment plants, military uses and supply monopolies progressively gutted the original supranational design, leaving a weak treaty that was quickly overtaken by cheap oil, national nuclear programmes and fragmented industrial structures.