75 Years of the Schuman Declaration

To the left: the numeral "75"; to the lower right: a hand signing the declaration with a quill. The quill, formed from a leafy branch, dissolves upward into flying doves rising within a semicircle of six stars representing the founding signatory states. Along the upper edge: the inscription "DÉCLARATION SCHUMAN 09.05.1950"; along the right edge: the issuing state "LUXEMBOURG", the year "2025", and the marks of the Paris Mint and Engraver-General Joaquin Jimenez. At the lower left: the Grand Duke's monogram; along the lower edge: the designer Chiara Principe's initials "CP".

This coin was also issued as a photorealistic strike in a mintage of just 2,500. The hand with the quill, leaves, doves and stars was rendered photorealistically. This variant is only included in the official coin set.

On 9 May 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented his plan to pool Western European coal and steel production under a common authority. The proposal was largely the work of Jean Monnet and aimed to permanently overcome the traditional rivalry between France and Germany through economic integration. Schuman himself was a man of the borderlands: born in 1886 in Luxembourg-Clausen and raised in Lorraine, he had experienced the division of Europe firsthand. His declaration led, as early as 1951, to the Treaty of Paris, which established the European Coal and Steel Community — the first supranational union, involving not only France, West Germany, and Italy but also Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Luxembourg holds a special place in this history: it was one of the six founding states and, from 1952, hosted the High Authority in Luxembourg City. This made the Grand Duchy an early institutional core of a united Europe — today it hosts the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors, and other EU institutions. Schuman's idea of securing peace through shared economic interests rather than through treaties alone is regarded as the conceptual cornerstone of European integration. To mark the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, Luxembourg commemorates this history in 2025 with a 2-euro coin.