ABSTRACT
With one exception, the countries which signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 were members of the western European industrial core. That exception was Italy. Italy was the most advanced member of the southern fringe. Her northern manufacturing regions centred on Turin and Milan were among Europe’s most productive, but the problem of her backward South (Mezzogiorno) had not yet been resolved. Italy became a founder member of the EEC because, like the other members of the Six who had founded the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952, she wanted to extend that successful but clearly delimited initiative to broader spheres of European integration. Italy’s search for rehabilitation after the war had led her governments and leaders of opinion to support a number of efforts to associate the countries of Europe. These respected aspirations, together with Italy’s post-war efforts to develop a specialised steel industry, secured her admission to the ECSC, despite her being the least industrialised member and the one with the least to offer in terms of natural resources and skilled labour. In 1957, in a stronger economic and political position, Italy wanted to reinforce her contact with the core as a means of accelerating her internal development. Like West Germany, Italy moved from the extremes of pre-war Fascist autarky to an internationalist and integrationist position which set an example to Europe.
