European economic problems

Recommendation 559 (1969)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 15 and 16 May 1969 (6th and 7th Sittings) (see Doc. 2560, report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development). Text adopted by the Assembly on 16 May 1969 (7th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Recalling its decision in Resolution 387 to survey European integration, particularly fields covered by the Treaty of Rome, in order to distinguish those areas where the process of integration can be spread to Western Europe generally ;

2. Convinced of the hindrance to integration and to the emergence of a truly Europe-wide economy represented by obstacles to trade arising from varying binding national standards for many industrial products ;

3. Noting the efforts of CEN, of the Tripartite Committee, and of other bodies to bring order into the field ;

4. Aware of and welcoming the efforts at co-ordination in this matter practised in EFTA and now about to be adopted, within the next year or two, by EEC directives under Article 100 of the Treaty of Rome ;

5. Realising that the best general method of getting universal standards will be by acceptance, for each industrial product concerned, of the standards set by the appropriate existing specialised institute rather than by unnecessary definition of new standards ;

6. Emphasising that difficult problems will emerge both inside EEC and outside when agreement has to go beyond standard specifications to mutual recognition of testing facilities and automatic acceptance of markings ; and recalling the work done through the Council of Europe in the parallel field of drug testing agreement ;

7. Aware of the Europe-wide conference which is to be held in 1970 under the auspices of ECE to find ways of bringing order into all this activity ;

8. Believing that the need is to take the directives of EEC and the work of CEN and the testing and marking systems that will be associated with them, and to seek arrangements, recognised by EEC, to enable the flow of goods to be free throughout all the countries involved ; believing that other bodies which exist for general economic collaboration in Europe may not prove appropriate for this kind of strictly Western European technical harmonisation and agreements on testing,

9. Recommends to the Committee of Ministers that :

a it instruct the Secretary General to prepare a study, which should also be made available to the Assembly, of the whole situation, showing the impact on the European economy of the emerging EEC proposals and directives and evaluating the work of other international European bodies in this kind of technical field ;

b it arrange for representatives of the Council of Europe to attend the conference which is to be held in 1970 under the auspices of ECE, and to be authorised to make clear that the facilities of the Council can be strengthened, if it proves appropriate, to further the technical harmonisation as outlined in paragraph 8 above ; these representatives should, in particular, make it clear that the Council will be ready to prepare the Europe-wide mutual agreements on recognition of testing facilities and markings that will have to accompany any detailed agreements on industrial standards.