History of the Netherlands The Dutch government subsequently decided on a large-scale programme of public works (the "Delta Works") to protect the country against future floods. The project took more than thirty years to complete. The Oosterscheldedam, an advanced sea storm barrier, became operational in 1986. According to Dutch government engineers, the odds of a major inundation anywhere in the Netherlands are now one in 10,000 years. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), was founded in 1951 by the six founding members: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (the Benelux countries) and West Germany, France and Italy. Its purpose was to pool the steel
Habsburg Netherlands on. In 1581, the Seven United Provinces seceded to form the Dutch Republic; the remaining Spanish Southern Netherlands eventually passed on to Habsburg Austria. Finally, the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the French First Republic in 1795, becoming the French client state of the Batavian Republic. The Habsburg Netherlands was a geo-political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries (i.e. the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and French Nord-Pas-de-Calais) from 1482 to 1581. Already under the rule of the Burgundian duke Philip the Good (1419–1467), the provinces of the Netherlands began to grow together: Flanders, Artois and Mechelen, Namur, Holland,