Robert Rothschild

Baron Robert Rothschild (16 December 1911 – 3 December 1998) was a Belgian diplomat. He helped to draft the Treaty of Rome of 1957, the foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958.

Early life Rothschild was born on 16 December 1911, in Brussels. He was the son of Bernhard Rothschild (1884–1964) and Marianne Elisabeth ( Rijnveld) Rothschild and his brother was Marcel Rothschild.

He attended the Université libre de Bruxelles in Brussels.

In 1954, Rothschild was appointed chef de cabinet of Paul-Henri Spaak at the Belgian foreign ministry. For the next two years, he worked together with Spaak and Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers on the Treaty of Rome (which brought about the creation of the European Economic Community) before the final signing of the treaty in 1957. Shortly before the treaty was signed, Rothschild was standing beside Spaak gazing over the Forum Romanum in Rome, when Spaak said "I think that we have re-established the Roman Empire without a single shot being fired."

Robert was due to join the Belgian delegation at NATO after the summit conference in Paris in 1960, between Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight D. Eisenhower. But, because of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane crisis, the conference was a failure and, so, Rothschild was sent to the Belgian Congo as number two to the governor. He arrived in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) two days after the rebellion by the constabulary, egged on by the Pan-Africanist Congolese independence leader, Patrice Lumumba. After the independence of the Congo from Belgium in 1960, Katanga, the richest of the six provinces of the Belgian Congo seceded on 11 July, and the Belgians decided to move to Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) in Katanga. While in Katanga, Rothschild had to steer his way delicately between Moise Tshombe the Rightist Katangan leader, who wanted Belgian support for the independence of the State of Katanga and Belgium, which was reluctant to grant it.

Ambassador to Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom After two years as ambassador to Switzerland, where in 1966, he was president of the executive committee of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, he went as ambassador to Paris. He was close to the French civil servant Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union. In 1973, he was appointed ambassador in London, where he remained until 1976, and then lived in London for the rest of his life.

Personal life In 1937, Rothschild was married to Renée Marcelle Mattman. They divorced in 1967 and he married Mary ( Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) Hollond (1925–2017), former wife of Robert Gustaf Percy Hollond (a son of Maj.-Gen. Spencer Edmund Hollond), and daughter of Admiral Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, on 24 May 1978.

Rothschild died in London on 3 December 1998.

Honours Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (1963) Grand Officer, Order of Leopold