User:Brigade Piron/European Defence Community

The European Defence Community (EDC) was a proposed military alliance between Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany between 1951 and 1954.

Conceived as a European pilar for the recently formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the EDC was intended to create a "European Army" which would permit West German rearmament without allowing a resurgent West Germany militarily to threaten its European neighbors.

The EDC was never implemented as France's National Assembly refused to ratify the founding Treaty of Paris in 1954. It is considered an important milestone in the history of European integration.