General policy of the Council of Europe: After 25 years of European and Atlantic co-operation

Recommendation 729 (1974)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 8 and 9 May 1974 (4th and 5th Sittings) (see Doc. 3424, report of the Political Affairs Committee). Text adopted by the Assembly on 9 May 1974 (5th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Having noted the report by its Political Affairs Committee on twenty-five years of European and Atlantic cooperation (Doc. 3424) ;

2. Having regard to the pioneer role played by the Council of Europe throughout the past twenty-five years in improving international cooperation and bringing together the states of Europe ;

3. Convinced that the Council of Europe will continue to exercise a highly important mission during the coming years in bringing about closer cooperation among its member states ;

4. Considering that the Council of Europe, as the spokesman for all European democracies, must make its specific contribution to the solution of the problems confronting international cooperation today ;

5. Deeply concerned at the continuing stalemate in European unification, and taking note of the particularly serious developments now affecting the Treaty of Rome and thereby threatening to break up the Furopean Community proper ;

6. Concerned at the symptoms of a crisis in parliamentary democracy which in the long run would threaten internal political stability and strain international relations ;

7. Convinced, now as in the past, that close and balanced cooperation between the states of Western Europe and North America is necessary in all sectors of mutual interest ;

8. Taking the view that closer cooperation with the Mediterranean countries would help to improve the political situation in this area ;

9. Considering that the pursuit of a policy of detente by the member states in the framework of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe should bring about improved relations between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe, although pressures to reach agreement this summer must not be permitted to dilute the Western case, which is, in essence, the advocacy of freer movement of people, ideas and information across the frontiers of Europe ;

10. Referring to its Recommendations 704 (1973) and 726 (1974) on the political role of the Council of Europe, as the only organisation comprising all the democratic states of Europe,

11. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers, after considering the major international problems with which European states have now to contend :

a give renewed impetus to the process of European unification by taking steps to encourage European states to get together and discuss their respective positions at international talks, and by continuing to expand and strengthen the Council of Europe's activities in the field of intergovernmental cooperation ;

b help to seek ways of strengthening European democracy :

by arranging for the part played by the Council of Europe in the various sectors of European cooperation to be better known and appreciated,

by studying the causes of the crisis at present sweeping democratic institutions and suggesting corrective measures ;

c to activate cooperation with the nations of North America :

by helping to devise forms of transatlantic consultations,

by stressing the European interest in certain specific sectors, such as energy supplies, which are of vital importance for the industrialised and developing countries alike ;

d offer the Council of Europe's help in implementing plans for cooperation with the states bordering on the Mediterranean ;

e consider new initiatives for cooperating with the states of Eastern Europe :

by consulting each other with a view to presenting common positions at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and stressing at the same time that the three negotiation baskets cannot be separated from each other,

by refusing the setting up of new and permanent organisations unless the developments and results of the conference provide justification for such institutions,

by offering, to begin with, Eastern European states that so wish the opportunity of participating in certain areas of technical cooperation in the framework of the Intergovernmental Work Programme of the Council of Europe.