 They were however permitted to send their delegations to the authority after the Petersberg agreement.With the West German agreement to join the European Coal and Steel Community in order to lift the restrictions imposed by the IAR, thus also ensuring French security by perpetuating French access to Ruhr coal, the role of the IAR was taken over by the ECSC.France had broken off the coal-rich Saar from Germany and made it into a protectorate, economically integrated with France and nominally politically independent although its security and foreign policy was dictated from France.