East-West relations (General policy of the Council of Europe)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 24 and 25 September 1986 (19th and 20th Sittings) (see Doc. 5621, report of the Political Affairs Committee, Doc. 5629, opinion of the Committee on Culture and Education and Doc. 5634, opinion of the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25 September 1986 (20th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
2. Recalling in particular its invitation, in the first mentioned resolution, to governments and parliaments of member states "to intensify European cooperation in the various specialised fields of activity included within the general terms of reference of the Council of Europe, and particularly in the educational, cultural, economic, environmental, legal and scientific fields", as well as deciding "to continue and intensify its existing contacts at parliamentary level with European non-member countries, with a view to setting up efficient forums and mechanisms for dialogue aiming at improved mutual knowledge and co-operation in the interests of détente and the construction of Europe in the widest sense" ;
3. Welcoming the Committee of Ministers' reaffirmation at their 78th Session (Strasbourg, 23 and 24 April 1986) that the CSCE process as a whole remains a particular concern of the Council of Europe;
4. Convinced that the CSCE process has provided an extremely useful framework for the continuing improvement of East-West relations;
5. Anxious to help ensure that the future CSCE meetings lead to concrete improvements in relations between all the participating states, but above all to improvements for the men and women living in Europe;
6. Concerned that many of the important agreements reached by the CSCE states and contained in the Helsinki Final Act and the Madrid concluding document, particularly in respect of human rights and human contacts, should be better complied with, following agreement, reached at the Stockholm Conference on 22 September 1986, on security and confidence-building measures;
7. Concerned especially that numerous political prisoners are still being detained, sentenced, imprisoned, deported or exiled under inhuman conditions in the USSR and other Eastern bloc states without the protection of proceedings based on the rule of law and independent courts;
8. Concerned especially that, contrary to the Helsinki and Madrid agreements, the ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities in the above-mentioned participating states continue to be deprived of essential human rights as well as of their linguistic, religious and cultural development, and that insufficient exit visas are granted to those members of such minorities who, in despair over that situation, wish to leave their countries;
9. Concerned also that the agreement in the Madrid concluding document to ensure "steady, tangible progress " in respect of human rights has not yet been put into effect in the USSR and other Eastern bloc states;
10. Disturbed by the fact that some of the Eastern bloc countries participating in the CSCE process have not yet taken energetic measures to combat emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere, despite the agreements that have been reached, so that forests continue to suffer serious damage as a result of these emissions;
11. Expressing its regret once again that the USSR, the other Eastern bloc states and other states participating in the CSCE process continue to refuse, despite years of co-operation with the member states of the Council of Europe, to institute official contacts and official relations with the Council of Europe as such, although this would serve to improve mutual relations;
12. Welcoming the important step forward made in the Budapest Cultural Forum of autumn 1985 in bringing together, within the CSCE process, cultural and scientific personalities from outside the diplomatic and political world, and hoping that concrete activities will emerge from the many proposals formulated, including further opportunities for contact and individual expression within the CSCE process as were provided by the Forum;
13. Regretting that the Assembly was in no way involved in any of the delegations member states sent to the Cultural Forum, despite the direct request addressed to the Chairman-in-Office of the Committee of Ministers;
14. Regretting the increasing difficulty for Unesco to provide a basis for constructive all-European cooperation in the field of education, science and culture, recalling, in this connection, the adoption by the Committee of Ministers on 25 April 1985 of Resolution (85) 6 on European cultural identity, and awaiting with interest the results of the mandate given by the Ministers to their Deputies "to ascertain and propose, with the assistance of the Council for Cultural Co-operation, areas where it would be possible to engage in closer co-operation with those states of Europe that are neither members of the Council of Europe nor parties to the European Cultural Convention, and to report back to the Committee of Ministers on this matter" ;
15. Welcoming the invitation addressed to Yugoslavia to adhere to the European Cultural Convention which it is hoped the Yugoslav authorities will be able to accept as soon as possible, so as to enable that country to participate as a full member in the Council of Europe's activities in the cultural field, and urging the greater involvement of other European non-member countries in specific projects or activities;
16. Recalling further that the President of the Assembly led a delegation to Belgrade in February 1985 at the invitation of the President of the Yugoslav Federal Parliament (Skupstina), that a member of the Skupstina took the floor for the first time during the Parliamentary Assembly's debate on OECD on 1 October 1985, and that a delegation from the Skupstina participated in the meeting of the Political Affairs Committee on 9 and 10 June 1986 in Innsbruck;
17. Welcoming the final report (June 1986) of the Colombo Commission (Commission of Eminent European Personalities) on the long-term future of European co-operation, which deals, among other things, with possibilities of European co-operation across the frontiers between the different economic and political systems;
18. Recalling its
Resolution 836 (1985) on relations between Europe and the United States of America, which included a decision to seek to deepen the dialogue with the United States Congress and Administration on questions of mutual interest and especially East-West relations;
19. Welcoming the initiative of the President of the French Republic, Mr François Mitterrand, to create the Eureka project on high technology, in which eighteen Council of Europe states and Finland are participating, and which the Assembly considers the most promising attempt for several years on the part of Europe to rise to the technological challenge of the late twentieth century;
20. Considering also that special attention should be devoted to the problems of the environment on the one hand, and to research and applications in the field of energy deriving from thermonuclear fusion and other sources of renewable energy, on the other;
21. Considering that increased European co-operation is also called for with a view to the exploitation of space for peaceful purposes;
22. Noting with satisfaction that, at the Geneva summit meeting of November 1985, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev agreed in principle that the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union should be cut by half and that the Geneva negotiations on arms control and disarmament should be speeded up, and welcoming also agreement between the two leaders on a programme for deeper and broader, as well as more regular, bilateral contacts over a broad spectrum of fields,
23. Reaffirms the Council of Europe's vocation to promote respect for human rights world-wide;
24. Urges the United States and the Soviet Union to take steps that might further improve their bilateral relationship and have a positive impact on the general East-West relationship, so that the timetable agreed at Geneva can be respected;
25. Emphasises that lasting improvement over the whole range of East-West relations presupposes improvement in the human rights practices of the Soviet Union and the East European countries, and that the current policies of those countries in the field of human rights may unfavourably affect possibilities for progress in other fields, including the field of arms control;
26. In this connection calls on the Government of the USSR to discontinue immediately its war against the Afghan people and to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan;
27. Calls urgently on Council of Europe member states to propose, at the follow-up CSCE meeting beginning in Vienna in November 1986, that the general principle be accepted within the CSCE process of the possibility of the involvement of the Council of
Europe in certain projects arising from the Budapest Cultural Forum, whether for example in those proposals put forward jointly by Eastern and Western countries, or in specific activities such as cooperation between cultural foundations or the holding of a cultural heritage symposium;
28. Suggests that contacts be established at ministerial level between conferences of specialised ministers, organised by the Council of Europe, and their East European counterparts, where these exist (as for example in the field of education);
29. Supports the recommendations of the Colombo Commission:
a "that the non-member European states be informed of the Council of Europe's readiness to dialogue and co-operate not only in the sphere of culture, but also in other fields within its competence ...;
b that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe be instructed to approach the governments of these states with a view to determining the fields in which co-operation might be envisaged and working out the practical arrangements;
c that contacts be established at parliamentary level between the Parliamentary Assembly and the non-member European countries, in particular in the fields of culture, the environment and transfrontier co-operation;
d that the Committee of Ministers, in the framework of its political dialogue, actively prepare the participation of member states in all the CSCE meetings and conferences, so that they may present joint positions and proposals;
e that the Parliamentary Assembly hold round tables on various aspects of the CSCE with participants from non-member states";
30. Calls upon the Committee of Ministers to study with the Assembly means of improving dialogue between the two organs, on the lines suggested in
Recommendation 1017, which referred to a proposal of the Colombo Commission concerning presentation to the Assembly of the results of political dialogue at intergovernmental level;
31. Considers that, more than ever in the aftermath of the superpower Summit in Geneva and three successive CSCE meetings (Ottawa, Budapest, Berne) at which consensus on a final communiqué proved impossible, governments and parliaments of Council of Europe member states have a special duty to persevere in their efforts to ensure that Europe plays its own role, notably through resolute pursuit of the CSCE process, in a network of agreements between the small and medium-sized states on both sides of the division of our European continent, which should affirm its fundamental cultural unity;
32. And believing that, to this end, a more resolute attempt should be made by the Council of Europe, in its intergovernmental work programme and in its activity at political levels, to privilege co-operation with this wider Europe, which should therefore be clearly distinguished in the third medium-term plan from cooperation with other parts of the world,
33. Calls on the Secretary General and on the governments of the member states to make appropriate resources available for such activities;
34. Urges the governments of the Council of Europe member states to take advantage of the Vienna CSCE follow-up meeting to consolidate peace and cooperation, for which purpose delegations of member states would need, on the basis of the Council of Europe's ideological and political positions, to:
a insist first of all on the long overdue implementation of past agreements, especially concerning the human dimension of the Helsinki Final Act;
b make clear that permanent peace is only possible if human rights are generally respected, since only thus can the necessary climate of confidence be created in which disarmament and force reductions become truly effective;
c underline that lack of progress on the human dimension cannot be compensated by progress in the economic, scientific and technological fields, in which it is nevertheless necessary to work out new forms of co-operation;
35. Stresses that:
a since the signature in 1975 of the Helsinki Final Act, new developments have taken place whose dramatic nature had not been foreseen, and the lesson for all the peoples of Europe of the Chernobyl accident needs to be taken into account;
b in this connection, the Vienna meeting is the appropriate forum for drawing up new principles with regard to transfrontier hazards in connection with nuclear power stations and all environmental problems;
c open access to information, verification of data and mutual consultation are indispensable in the interests of all peoples of Europe, implying agreement on measurements and danger levels, in cooperation with the competent international organisations ;
d experience in verification of the peaceful use of nuclear energy could not fail to facilitate the solution of similar problems in the military field, thereby making an important contribution to the safeguarding of peace;
36. Expresses the hope that the Vienna meeting, following on the relatively positive results of the Stockholm Conference, will be able to restore the credibility of the CSCE process, which would be seriously shaken in the eyes of the citizens of the participating states if agreements continue to be disregarded and violated as they have been to date;
37. Calls on the governments of all those states participating in the CSCE process which do not yet have official relations with the Council of Europe to review their position in the interests of improved co-operation between East and West.
