A DRAFT RESOLUTION - on the future prospects of co-operation within the ambit of the Council of Europe
1. We, the European Parliamentary Representatives of the fifteen nations constituting the Council of Europe, solemnly reaffirm, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Council of Europe, our determination to attain our common goal of a united Europe.
2. We wish to underline the numerous proposals and achievements of the Council of Europe and pay tribute in particular to the spirit of co-operation and respect for the principles of liberty and democracy which led to the conclusion of the Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the constitution of a European Court of Human Rights to safeguard, for the first time in history on the international plane, basic human rights in Europe.
3. We desire to record that the Council of Europe has become the indispensable meeting-place for all those who strive to ensure a better future for Europe, and we salute the fruitful efforts to further co-ordination and harmonious relations which have continued increasingly in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, and in the higher interests of the European family of nations, in the political, economic, social and cultural fields. We recall with pride that at moments of grave crisis the. Assembly has forcefully expressed the unity and determination of free Europe in the face of threats to Western civilisation.
4. We welcome the development of the supranational Communities which stem from the Council of Europe and we hope that they will make further progress and that ever closer links will be maintained between those Communities and the Member States of the Council of Europe which have not so far felt able to adhere to them.
5. We deem it essential that, for the sake of greater efficiency, and regardless of considerations of prestige or national interest, the European Governments and parliaments should boldly undertake without further delay the rationalisation and, so far as may be possible, the centralisation of European institutions.
6. We express the hope that the Council of Europe will be able to increase both the degree and rate of its achievements and that the Committee of Ministers, mindful of the need for progress, will, more frequently than in the past, be guided by the recommendations of the Consultative Assembly.
7. We consider it necessary to strengthen the action and powers of the Assembly by endowing it with the right to keep under review the work of all European intergovernmental organisations other than those of the Six.
8. We proclaim our resolve to continue to work unremittingly for the achievement of the union of Europe and we address an urgent appeal for their collaboration to the Committee pf Ministers, to the Governments and parliaments of the Member States of the Council of Europe and to public opinion among the European peoples for the attainment of this aim, on which the triumph of justice, the progress of democracy and world peace largely depend.
