As State Secretary in the Chancellery (1950/51) and State Secretary in the Foreign Office (from 1951), Walter Hallstein (1901–1982), a law professor, was instrumental in the success of the negotiations on the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community (EEC). The Treaties of Rome took effect on January 1, 1958; shortly thereafter Hallstein was elected as the first president of the Commission of the EEC. Hallstein saw economic integration as a precursor to political union, which he believed should be the goal of West Germany’s European policy. This line of thought conflicted with Charles de Gaulle’s concept of a “Europe of fatherlands.” After conflicts emerged about agricultural financing, and after the French resisted certain EEC policies—including the community’s request for certain payments and the introduction of majority decisions in the Council of Ministers—the French government demanded that Hallstein be removed from his post. This followed in mid-1967.