The Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe recognising that unless immediate steps are taken to promote European economic union, there must inevitably be a European economic collapse, involving a catastrophic decline in the standard of living of the European peoples and social disturbances endangering their democratic way of life, urgently recommends:
a that the Committee of Ministers should at once set up a permanent "European Economic Department" composed in part of appropriate sections
of 0. E. E. C. and other existing intergovernmental
bodies, the officials of this Department
to be solely responsible to the Council of Europe and to be given sufficiently longterm appointments to ensure their independence of national governments;
b That the Committee of Ministers should, with the assistance and technical advice of the above-mentioned "European Economic Department",
formulate proposals for the progressive integration of the industrial, commercial and agricultural
systems of the Stales Members of the Council of Europe and the overseas countries associated with them, taking into account the need for the establishment of free convertibility between
the currencies of the Member States and the maintenance
in some form, within the framework of the European union, of the system of economic preferences at present existing between certain Member States and overseas countries associated with them;
c that these Proposals should be submitted by the Committee of Ministers to the Assembly for its consideration at a session to be held in January, 1950, at which the Assembly or its Committee on Economic Questions would receive oral explanations from Ministers representing the collective policy of the Committee of Ministers or, in technical matters, from the competent officials of the European Economic Department;
d that after the proposals have been approved by the Assembly a European delegation, representing
the collective policy of the Member States, should enter into négociations with the Government
of the United States of America, or any other governments concerned, with a view to securing their consent to any treaty modifications which may be necessary.
