Enlargement of the European communities

Resolution 353 (1967)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debates on 26th September 1967 (10th and 11th Sittings) (see Doc. 2282, report of the Political Committee; Doc. 2261, report of the Economic Committee; Doc. 2281, report of the Committee on Agriculture; and Doc. 2287 (draft Resolution). Text adopted by the Assembly on 27th September 1967 (12th Sitting).

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Noting the progress which EFTA and EEC have made, but convinced that important political and economic advantages would flow from the creation of a single continent-sized European market;

2. Recording its satisfaction at the successful conclusion of the Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations in GATT which cannot but facilitate an enlargement of the Common Market;

3. Bearing in mind the wider scope which the creation of such a unified market would provide for technological development in Europe;

4. Welcoming the new prospects for the enlargement of the European Communities opened up as a result of recent formal applications for membership by the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and Norway, and taking into account the requests for participation in one form or another by Sweden, Austria and Switzerland and also the request made on 18th September 1967 by Malta;

5. Convinced also that political and economic co-operation must develop together, and that the European Community, as it expands, will exert a wider influence and accept greater responsibilities in international relations;

6. Recognising that the only way to deal with the problems is by negotiations between the Six and the applicants;

7. Conscious that a certain number of concrete and complex problems - i.e. in the field of agricultural policies, in the monetary field and with regard to the trade of EFTA countries with non-Community Members -will have to be resolved in the framework of these negotiations, and that adequate transition periods have to be provided for, if the encouraging prospects for the enlargement of the European Communities are to be fulfilled;

8. Recognising that it will be necessary to ensure a certain stability in the basic structure of the common agricultural policy and to safeguard the substance of the regulations already adopted, adjusting the present regulations on particular points, without bringing into question fundamental characteristics of the common agricultural policy but taking into account the actual situation of certain applicant countries,

9. Calls on all those concerned to make the most determined efforts in a spirit of mutual understanding to resolve the problems in question and therefore to begin the negotiations with a minimum of delay.