Intergovernmental Work Programme of the Council of Europe 1969-1970

Opinion 51 (1969)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 29 September 1969 (8th Sitting) (see Doc. 2642, report of the Special Committee on the Intergovernmental Work Programme). Text adopted by the Assembly on 29 September 1969 (8th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Having regard to Resolution (69) 17 whereby the Committee of Ministers adopted the Intergovernmental Work Programme of the Council of Europe for 1969-1970 and invited the Consultative Assembly to express its views on the subject ;

2. Having regard to the two Communications made to the Consultative Assembly by the Committee of Ministers on its activities during the period from 25 September 1968 to 6 May 1969 some of which concern the Work Programme and the action taken by the Committee of Ministers on Recommendation 516 (1968) and Opinion No. 50 (1969),

3. Expresses the following opinion :

A. General conception of the Work Programme and procedure for consulting the Assembly

4. Noting that, despite the recommendations formulated in its Opinion No. 50, the new Work Programme for 1969-1970 :

4.1 is submitted to it, like that of the previous year, in its final form and not in the form of a draft subject to modification ;

4.2 is presented without reasons or information to enlighten the Assembly with regard to the presence or absence of certain items in the various chapters of the Programme ;

5. Noting that most of the specific requests formulated in Opinion No. 50 have not been taken into consideration in drawing up the new Work Programme ;

6. Noting, however, that the Committee of Ministers has instructed "the Secretary General to submit proposals to the Ministers' Deputies on how the procedures for preparing and carrying out the Work Programme might be improved", but that this instruction makes no reference to Opinion No. 50, to which the Secretary General might have been invited to refer ;

7. Noting that, in the course of the twelve months which have elapsed since the adoption of Opinion No. 50, the Committee of Ministers has not been able to take a final decision on this text and proposes to do so later ;

8. Noting that the new Work Programme, like those of previous years, gives the impression of an "inventory of action in progress rather than a programme based on criteria arising out of political decisions and intentions" ;

9. Noting with satisfaction, however, the Committee of Ministers' declared intention to "bear in mind, when drawing up forth-coming Programmes", the four priorities mentioned in Recommendation 516 and in Opinion No. 50,

10. Considers that the above observations considerably reinforce, if there were any need, the justification of the requests contained in Opinion No. 50, with regard to the procedure for consulting and informing the Assembly :

a Post facto consultation of the Assembly on a Work Programme which has been finally adopted leaves the Assembly no real opportunity to influence intergovernmental activities before it is too late ;

b Drawing up the Programme at yearly intervals does not correspond to the rhythm of work of the two organs of the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers and the Assembly ; the cumbersome procedure imposed on them annually by the Programme is thus partially deprived of the concrete results which might justify it at the level of results and in fact results in lost time ;

c The absence of adequate documentation on the reasons and factors which guided the Committee of Ministers in drawing up the Programme does not permit the Assembly to formulate a qualified judgment :

11. Considers that drawing up the Programme at two or three-yearly intervals would make it possible both to reduce loss of time, and to consult the Assembly ante factum and to provide it with adequate documentation ;

12. Declares that it would not consider itself able in the future to make a valid judgment on a Work Programme which was not accompanied by adequate documentation explaining not only "the major pre-occupations of governments" and the "requirements of European unification, in those fields within the province of the Council of Europe", referred to in Resolution (68) 15 of the Committee of Ministers, but also the general priorities or particular reasons which may have led to the selection or rejection of this or that item in the Programme ; Requests, in this spirit, that the draft Work Programme prepared by the Secretary General be communicated to it ;Also recalls its wish for "an appendix setting out the progress made with the implementation of the Work Programme from one year to the next" ;

B. Rationalisation and programming of intergovernmental activities at European level

13. Recalling Resolution (68) 15 of the Committee of Ministers recommending that governments "see to it that there is close coordination within national administrations for the purpose of ensuring rationalisation of intergovernmental work undertaken at European level" ;

14. Considering that such an effort to achieve rationalisation is also necessary at the level of the European organisations and that rational programming of the activities of the Council of Europe can only be conceived within the framework of a global co-ordinated programme of European intergovernmental activities, avoiding overlapping and ensuring better use of resources ;

15. Convinced that such global programming at two or three-yearly intervals, as requested by the Assembly, could and should be based on more long-term programming, itself based on a prospective analysis of the future of Europe, carried out by a body re-presenting all the governments concerned ;

16. Recalling the recent declarations of the French Prime Minister concerning the "twenty-five institutions and bodies concerned with the building of Europe" and governments' difficulties in coordinating "twenty-five governmental delegations in twenty-five different bodies", and finally the "waste of energy, effort, efficiency and money" which results from this situation,

17. Requests the Committee of Ministers to take steps with a view to :

a the institution of a European intergovernmental programme to co-ordinate and rationalise the whole of the activities of the European intergovernmental organisations ;

b the organisation of intergovernmental co-operation aimed at jointly determining the prospective bases of such programming ;

C. Specific sectors of the 1969 - 1970 Work Programme

Presentation of the Programme

18. Suggests presenting the Work Programme in a way which, based on the broad priorities agreed on by the Committee of Ministers and the Assembly, indicates more clearly the purpose of the items included in the Programme and avoids a traditional division, which might give a false impression of the respective activities of the various sectors of the Council of Europe ;

Chapter I : The economic structure

19. Is of the opinion that the aims, scope and nature of this chapter and its activities should be described in terms which reflect the role and vocation of the Council of Europe in the economic field at the level of intergovernmental co-operation ;

Chapter II : His legal and administrative

status and the prevention of - crime- Human rights

20. Welcomes Resolution (68) 30 of the Committee of Ministers on measures to be taken against incitement to racial, national or religious hatred ;

21. Expresses the hope that the following questions be included in the legal chapter of the Intergovernmental Work Programme for 1970 - 1971 ;

21.1 harmonisation of company law, including the possibilities of a European Company Statute ;

21.2 international protection of type faces ;

21.3 protection of national minorities by the inclusion of an article in a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, or otherwise ;

22. Suggests that the legal chapter should increasingly group subjects under broad headings - for example contract law or company law - so as to indicate that coordinated items in distinct areas of legal harmonisation are being tackled in the Work Programme ;

Chapter III : Social structure and welfare

23. Notes with satisfaction that the Committee of Ministers has adopted the recommendations on the return of migrant workers to their country of origin, the participation of migrant workers in the life of the firm in the host countries, and low-cost housing for migrant workers ;

24. Reiterates its wish as expressed in Opinion No. 50 on the 1968-1969 Work Programme, to be able to state its views on the text of the European Statute for Migrant Workers ;

25. Stresses again the importance of the equivalence of professional and technical qualifications [(1) See Recommendation 479 (1967).], which is of particularly vital concern to migrant workers, and trusts that this point will be included in the Work Programme without further delay ;

26. Is of the opinion that in each part of Chapter III the different items concerning migrant workers and those concerning population problems should be placed together in a logical succession ;

27. Emphasises the importance of a study of the problems of participation, and invites the Committee of Ministers to include this subject in the 1970-1971 Work Programme ;

28. Recalls the major importance which it attaches to convening a Conference of Ministers of Labour and Social Affairs, an item which has been deleted from the Work Programme ; the agenda for such a Conference should include the elaboration of objectives to be pursued over the next five or ten years within this field of activities of the Council of Europe ;

Chapter IV : His health and hygiene

29. Is of the opinion that Chapter IV : "His health and hygiene" should be reviewed in order to choose a more limited number of issues on which effective progress can be made ;

30. Notes the inclusion in the Work Programme of the item "Public health implications and recent developments of drug addiction", and stresses that there should be more co-ordination of the various studies on different aspects of drug addiction undertaken by the Committee of Ministers and the Assembly ;

Chapter V : His physical and biological

environment and natural - resources

Chapter VI : His local community

31. Congratulates the Committee of Ministers for having taken action, within a relatively short space of time, on its recommendation concerning the convening of a European Conference of Ministers responsible for regional planning, as well as on the definitive insertion of a new chapter in the Work Programme dedicated to "Man in his local community'' ;

32. Protests, however, most energetically against the unjustified and unexplained refusal to insert in the Work Programme the preparation of a European convention on cooperation between local authorities, the principle of which has been accepted both by the European Conference of Local Authorities and by the representatives of the Ministries of the Interior of the member states sitting on the Committee on Co-operation in Municipal and Regional Matters ;

33. Protests likewise against the completely contradictory attitude of the Committee of Ministers in refusing,on one hand, to examine certain technical texts relating to the field of local communities under the pretext of not having had the opinion of governmental experts, and of refusing, on the other hand, to give a permanent standing to the Committee on Co-operation in Municipal and Regional Matters, a body which, as it represents the competent ministries of the member states, is capable of giving this expert opinion ;

34. Also protests energetically against the failure so far to give any explanation of this latter refusal ;

35. Regrets that certain questions in respect of which it has made recommendations still do not appear in the Programme for 1969-1970, and expresses the immediate wish that the 1970-1971 Programme contain the following points :

Elaboration of a convention on European co-operation between local authorities ;

Study of problems raised by urbanisation, in particular of the costs of urban concentration, the question of the creation of new towns and land use problems ;

Study of the problems raised by the use of computers in local administration ;

Declaration of Principles on Local Autonomy ;

Council of Europe aid to European intermunicipal exchanges ;

Chapter VII : His education and scientific attainments

Chapter VIII : His cultural development, youth, adult education and sport

36. Suggests that Chapters VII and VIII be thought out afresh and re-organised to reflect the two major objectives, permanent education and cultural development, and reserves the right to return to this question in the light of its own proposals for the re-organisation of European cultural cooperation ;

37. Considers that work should be accelerated on the projects mentioned under Chapter VII.II, items 40, 41, 48 [(2) Chapter VII - Item 40 : Closed-circuit television in school teaching : publication of a consolidated report (1971) ;Item 41 : Technology as a general science subject in secondary education : study of approaches with a view to the preparation of recommendations (1971) ; Item 48 : Educational technology for the Europe of twenty years hence (covering audiovisual media, space communications, computer systems and programmed instruction) : general analysis (1969, ...) ;], and Chapter VIII.II, item 20 (e) [(3) Chapter VIII - Item 20 (e) : The use of telecommunications and broadcasting satellites for educational purposes (1973).]and that the CCC should consider the report of the Working Group on the Application of Satellites for Educational and Cultural Purposes, entitled "Technological change in Europe in the next twenty years relevant to satellite application for education and culture", as the basis for its future work in the field of educational technology ;

D. Publicity

38. Renews the wishes already expressed in Opinion No. 50, concerning the need to publicise the Work Programme and the intergovernmental activities of the Council of Europe in general among the public at large ;

39. Welcomes the efforts made in this respect by the Committee of Ministers and the Secretariat in disseminating the Work Programme ;

40. Considers, however, that such publicity should relate to the whole of the activities of the Council of Europe, and therefore to the activities of the Consultative Assembly ;

41. Suggests therefore, that the booklet publicising the Work Programme should henceforth also include an account of the work in progress within the committees and organs of the Assembly ;

42. Requests the Bureau of the Assembly to take the necessary steps for the preparation of such a document for insertion in the booklet on the Work Programme, which would thus become the Work Programme of the Council of Europe.