Role of the Council of Europe in the economic field
taking account, in accordance with Articles 1 (c) and 23 (6) of the Statute, of existing international organisations
Conclusions
| Doc. 71
| 05 September 1949
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Adopted
5th September on the conclusion of the Debate. See: Doc. Nos. 10-13,
15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 27-29, Motions; No. 30, Report; Nos. 31-5G,
Amendments; No. 64, Text of the Report as amended by the Assembly
and Official Reports Nos. 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15. 1949 - 1st Session (10/08/1949 - 8/9/1949)
1 RECOMMENDATIONS
TO THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS
1.1 PREAMBLE
1. The Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe,
pledging itself to promote a policy of full employment and a rising
standard of life, warns the peoples of Europe that millions among
us will soon go hungry and unemployed unless we act at once to re-establish
the economic equilibrium between Europe and North America.
2. The most urgent task is to pay for the food and raw materials
which at present have to be bought in North America. The necessary
dollars can only be found if a fresh effort is made on both sides
of the Atlantic. The countries of Europe must increase their productivity
and reduce their costs and selling prices, so as to adapt themselves
to the hard facts of the post war world. On their side, the U. S.
A., which recognises the need for Europe to sell more to them, should
encourage these imports by every possible means and in particular
by lowering its customs tariffs.
3. The free nations of Europe can do much to save themselves
by mutual help. Together with their overseas associates and territories
they represent a population which, as regards numbers and skill,
is the equal of any other population in the world. If the peoples
of Europe are weak to-day, it is because they are divided, but if
they have the vision and courage to unite their markets, they can
lower their costs and selling prices, sell more to each other and
more than recover their lost prosperity.
4. The economic union of free Europe should not create an exclusive
trading area. On the contrary, the door would be open to the exchange
of goods and services of fair terms with all the world.
5. The economic union of free Europe should not create an exclusive
trading area. On the contrary, the door would be open to the exchange
of goods and services of fair terms with all the world.
6. This union would include the free circulation of men, goods
and capital. It implies the rapid establishment of a multilateral
system of payments, leading to the restoration of convertibility
of European currencies with one another, subject to the safeguards,
necessary to enable movements of capital to be controlled during
the transitional period.
7. The building up of such a union of free peoples implies central
planning, combined with a maximum degree of individual liberty.
The central planning must be by consent, and the liberty must be
used for the good of all.
1.2 I. PROPOSALS FOR ACTION TO BE TAKEN BY THE MEMBER
STATES OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND ALSO BETWEEN
THE LATTER AND OTHER NATIONS
The Consultative Assembly requests the Committee of Ministers:
1 To invite the Governments to
intensify the spread of economic information through existing channels
and at the same time to provide for the Council of Europe itself
to take direct action by every available means to make the peoples
of Europe aware of the gravity of the peril in which they are living, and
of the advantages to themselves of uniting their resources in a
common effort to regain solvency and reach a new level of prosperity.
2 To take all practical steps to establish as quickly as
possible a multilateral system of payments, including the restoration
of the inter-convertibility of European currencies, subject to the
safeguards necessary to enable the movement of capital to be controlled
during the transitional period.
3 To create permanent machinery for consultation on credit
policy between central banks of issue, and for the co-ordination
of credit policy.
4 :
a To follow up and extend
both the work of 0. E. E. C. in liberalising inter-European trade,
and all studies now being made in regard to the economic relations
of Europe and its overseas associates and territories;
b To take all preliminary action for the establishment of
a European economic union, which shall retain the preferential systems
and economic ties now in existence between certain European nations
and the overseas countries and territories associated with them;
and to consider their progressive extension to the other Member
States of this union.
c To study the development of production within the territories
of the members of the conference so that their individual import
requirements may be met as efficiently as possible from their combined
resources.
d To study appropriate action for the progressive abolition
of the obstacles to the free movement of men and for promoting the
widest possible employment of labour in the metropolitan and overseas
territories of Member States and of their associates.
e To study the conditions under which the investment in
their territories of American and other non-European capital could
be encouraged.
f To extend and develop a system of guaranteed markets.
g To call an economic conference, representing themselves
and their overseas associates and territories, in order to study
the above Proposals.
5 To call as soon as possible, industrial conferences representing
both employers', workers' and consumers' organisations, as well
as government services interested in the main manufacturing and agricultural
industries, in order to make concrete Proposals to the Assembly
on the organisation of these industries and the increase in their
productivity in the common interests of Europe.
6 To draw up a draft European convention for the control
of international cartels, which it will present to the Assembly.
1.3 II. The Consultative Assembly also requests the
Committee of Ministers:
a To submit to it Proposals
to meet the Recommendations made above together with a Report on
the progress made on these subjects since the Ordinary Session of
the Consultative Assembly;
b After the Consultative Assembly has considered these Proposals,
to nominate a delegation from the Council of Europe which shall
enter into negociations with the Government of the United States
of America and with any other Government concerned, in order to
express the common policy of the Member States and to seek through
joint agreement the modifications which should be made to existing treaties,
and in particular the action to be taken in the matter of lowering
customs tariffs in the United States so as to allow of the development
of European exports to that country.
1.4 III. PROPOSALS FOR THE FUTURE WORK OF THE COMMITTEE
ON ECONOMIC QUESTIONS
1. The Consultative Assembly shall decide:
a That the Committee on Economic Questions may sit in the
interval between Sessions;
b That it may split into specialised. sub-Committees;
c That these sub-Committees may hear evidence from experts
on their own subjects.
2. The Consultative Assembly shall request its President to
make contact with the Secretariat of U. N. O., of 0. E. E. C. and
B. I. S. in order to have access to all documents of O. E. E. C,
the Economic Commission for Europe, and B. I.S., and to arrange
for the international and national officers of these two organisations
to be heard by the Committee on Economic Questions, should the Committee
so desire.
3. The Appendix to this Report sets out those questions referred
to the Committee on Economic Questions by the Committee of Ministers
and by Members of the Consultative Assembly which the Committee
has decided should be the subject of study by its sub-Committees.
4. Part III of this Report shall, if necessary, be redrafted
so as to conform to any decisions which may be taken with regard
to the setting up of a Standing Committee.
Appendix
1. The Committee on Economic Questions has
set up four sub-Committees:
a Finance
and Currency;
b Commercial Policy;
c Industry, Agriculture and Food;
d Public Works.
2. In addition the Commission has appointed a rapporteur for
the study of a European Office of Patents.
3. The following subjects raised by Members of the Consultative
Assembly in Resolutions submitted to the Committee have been sent
for study to sub-Committees.
A. Finance and Currency sub-Committee
a A common currency for the
Member States of the Council of Europe;
b A European Reserve Bank;
c A European Bank for investments;
d Co-ordination of investments;
e A European clearing system.
B. Commercial Policy sub-Committee
a Liberalisation of inter-European
trade;
b Development of exchanges with the countries of Eastern
Europe by means of special agreements between Member States;
c Issuing of a European postage stamp;
d Development of the Tourist Industry in Europe.
C. Industry, Agriculture and Food sub-Committee
a The coal industry of the
Ruhr;
b Co-ordination of transport, steel and power;
c Development and co-ordination of production and improvement
in distribution of agricultural products.
