Since the last Report on its activities, Doc. 846, the Bureau has held the following meetings: a morning meeting each day from 10th to 17th October during the second part-Session and a meeting in Paris on 15th December 1958.
The Standing Committee held a meeting on the afternoon of 15th December in Paris.
At its Sitting on 17th October 1958 (22nd Sitting of the Tenth Session), the Assembly noted t he dates of the next Joint Meeting, which will take place on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th January 1959.
At the suggestion of the Bureau it also decided to hold the third part of its Tenth Session from Monday 19th to Wednesday 21st January. However, after adopting the agenda for this part-Session, Doc. 917, the Standing Committee, at its meeting in Paris on 15th December, held— and in this it was supported by the Bureau of the Assembly—that a three-day session would not be long enough to get through the agenda. It was therefore decided to prolong the part-Session by one day, so that it will now be held from Monday 19th to Thursday 22nd January inclusive.
The Bureau, furthermore, decided to invite the Foreign Ministers to take part in the two debates on general policy at the next Session (Berlin and co-ordination of foreign policies), and to invite the Ministers of Economic Affairs to attend the debate on economic relations between the Six and the Eleven (Free Trade Area). The Bureau took the view that in dealing with the Berlin problem it was highly desirable that someone as fully competent as M. Willy Brandt, Chief Burgomaster of Berlin, should address the Assembly; M. Willy Brandt has accepted an invitation for 19th and 20th January.
In pursuance of Order 55 of t he Assembly, the Bureau has transmitted to the committees concerned the following three applications for consultative status from non-governmental organisations:
These applications, together with the opinions of the committees concerned, will subsequently be examined by the Committee of Chairmen, which will report to the Assembly.
At its Sitting on 13th October 1958, the Assembly adopted Resolution 152 requesting the President " to make the necessary contacts and to send invitations at the appropriate time to the presiding officers of the two Houses of the United States Congress and of the Canadian Parliament with a view to holding a second Strasbourg Conference in 1959 ".
In pursuance of this Resolution the President of the Assembly sent a letter, on 1st December 1958, to Mr. Richard M. Nixon, Vice- President of the United States, to Mr. Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to Mr. Mark Drouin, Speaker of the Canadian Senate and to Mr. Roland Michener, Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons.
The Bureau and the Standing Committee welcomed the fact that the Governments have submitted their nominations to the Court of Human Rights sufficiently early to enable the election to take place during the January part- Session, 1959.
The list of candidates, accompanied by biographical notes on each candidate, is contained in Doc. 918, which has been distributed to all Assembly Representatives and Substitutes. On the proposal of the Bureau, the Standing Committee has decided that the Assembly shall elect the judges by two secret ballots, by an absolute majority in the first and by a simple majority in the second.
In accordance with Order 133 of the Assembly, the Bureau appointed a delegation to make contacts with the OEEC Inter-governmental Committee set up, with Mr. Maudling as its Chairman, to negotiate a free trade area. The delegation consisted of four members of the Bureau (MM. Dehousse, Elmgren, Kiesinger, and Lynch), two members of the Political Committee (MM. de Menthon and van der Goes van Naters), two members of the Economic Committee (MM. Federspiel and Hay) and one member of the Committee on Agriculture (M. Legendre). The delegation, led by M. Elmgren, in the unavoidable absence of M. Dehousse, was received by Mr. Maudling's Committee on 14th November and informed it of the views of the Assembly on questions concerning the proposed free trade area.
In Order 128, adopted on 16th October 1958, the Assembly had also instructed the Bureau " to undertake negotiations with O.E.E.C. with a view to ascertaining the point of view and suggestions of the latter on the draft Basic Agreement " contained in the Bureau's Report, Doc. 845. At its meeting in Paris on 15th December the Bureau decided to ask the Chairman of the Council of O.E.E.C, Mr. Heathcoat Amory, whether it would be possible to hold a meeting between the Council and the Assembly Bureau for an exchange of views on the principle and methods of amalgamating the two European Organisations. Such a meeting might take place, it was thought, in February 1959.
At its meeting on 15th December 1958, the Standing Committee decided t h a t the members best qualified to represent it as co-opted members of the Administrative Board of the Cultural Fund were the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen of the Cultural Committee.
The Bureau informed the Standing Committee of the difficulties met with in connection with several committee meetings outside Paris and Strasbourg, either owing to their excessive length in relation to their agenda or because the country in which the committee had wished to hold its meeting was unable to receive it, or because it had proved inconvenient for the committee itself to meet where it had planned.
The Bureau recalled that the Rules of Procedure, adopted by the Standing Committee on 12th February 1955, provide for only four cases in which there can be meetings in towns other than Strasbourg and Paris.
At the suggestion of the Bureau, the Standing Committee decided to request committees not to take any decision regarding a meeting outside Paris or Strasbourg, without consulting first the Bureau of the Assembly and then the country in which the Committee hoped to meet.
At its meeting on 15th December the Standing Committee referred:
The Secretary-General transmitted to the President of the Assembly (Doc. 543, para. 79 and Doc. 624) a copy of a note verbale from the United Kingdom Permanent Representative informing him of the withdrawal, in respect of British Guiana, of the derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights of 24th May 1954.
The provisions of the Convention are accordingly again being fully applied in British Guiana.