Reporter remembers founding of EU in 1957
BBC Rome correspondent David Willey covered the signing of the Treaty of Rome as a Reuters trainee. Here he looks back at the Europe of half a century ago.
I was actually there in the huge room frescoed with scenes from ancient Roman battles, when the six frock-coated founders of the Europe of the Six appended their signatures to the Treaty.
Crowded into the room were members of parliament, city authorities and, I seem to remember, a single red-hatted cardinal from the Vatican.
It was a very formal and quite impressive ceremony, which had been assigned to the Reuters office junior to help him cut his reportorial teeth.
There were speeches in Italian, French, German and Dutch -- not a word in English of course, because Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had already decided against joining the nascent European community...
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I was actually there in the huge room frescoed with scenes from ancient Roman battles, when the six frock-coated founders of the Europe of the Six appended their signatures to the Treaty.
Crowded into the room were members of parliament, city authorities and, I seem to remember, a single red-hatted cardinal from the Vatican.
It was a very formal and quite impressive ceremony, which had been assigned to the Reuters office junior to help him cut his reportorial teeth.
There were speeches in Italian, French, German and Dutch -- not a word in English of course, because Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had already decided against joining the nascent European community...