ANNEX
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SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCLUSIONS FROM DEPARTMENTAL BRIEFS ON ASSEMBLY'S RECOMMENDATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS
A-RECOMMENDATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS OF THE ASSEMBLY ON GENERAL AFFAIRS, AND
B-GENERAL QUESTIONS IN THE COVERING LETTER OF 9TH SEPTEMBER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY NOT COVERED BY PARTS II-VIII BELOW.
I. Recommendations to the Committee of Ministers
1. Amendments to the Statute
(a) Amendment to Articles 4 and 5 to confer on the Assembly a right of veto on the admission of new Members and new Associate Members of the Council.
On the face of it this may seem reasonable, but it is dangerous as suggesting that the Assembly has a jurisdiction in foreign affairs. This amendment should therefore not be adopted.
(b) Amendment to Article 23 to permit the Assembly to settle its own
Agenda.
The Assembly is likely in practice to discuss anything it likes, and the Committee of Ministers will find it increasingly difficult to exercise this control. Since the revised wording, by mentioning the aim and scope of the Council, as defined in Chapter I of the Statute, excludes the discussion of Defence matters, this amendment may be adopted.
(c) Amendments to Articles 25 and 26 to cancel the provisions for Substitutes
the number of representatives in the Assembly.
The membership of the Assembly should be increased as a price for the abolition of Substitutes, but an increase of 100 per cent. is unnecessarily great. If any lesser increase is to be made, it seems to be a choice between a rough increase of 25 per cent. or one of 50 per cent. in individual.
general representation
(Luxembourg remaining in any case at 3); and in view of the greater ease with which the existing proportions (particularly as regards the smaller Powers) could thereby be preserved it is recommended that the second alternative be preferred and that the Foreign Ministers' Deputies be instructed to work out a scheme accordingly.
(d) Amendment to Articles 36 and 37 to provide for a second Deputy Secre-
tary-General for the Assembly...
.
The principle of an additional Deputy Secretary-General should be accepted, but he must be responsible, not to the Assembly but for the Assembly. He and the Deputy Secretary-General for the Committee of Ministers should be responsible to the Secretary-General, who could be made responsible to the Council as a whole, if necessary taking his oath before the Assembly as well as before the Committee of Ministers. If this compromise is approved in the Committee of Ministers it should be referred to the Secretariat or the Foreign Ministers' Deputies for the drafting of the necessary amendment to the Statute. The question of the personalities involved should be held over for later discussion in the light of this report.
(e) Amendment to Article 41 (d) to permit the provision for the Amendment without ratification of Articles 23 to 35, 38 and 39, to come into force immediately instead of only at the conclusion of the Second Ordinary Session of the Assembly.
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This amendment should be adopted.
(f) Consequential Amendments to Articles 24, 29, 31 and 34.
Proese may hot all be necessary in the light of the fecision Be Committee of Ministers on the proposed amendments at (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) above, and there may be others. This question should therefore be referred to the Secretariat or the Foreign Ministers Deputies to submit recommendations.
2. Assembly's Recommendation that before the next Ordinary or Extraordinary Session the Committee of Ministers should consider the question of new admissions.
This matter should be considered in accordance with the Assembly's wishes and the lines on which the Foreign Secretary might speak are discussed in the covering paper.
II.-Resolutions of the Assembly
1. Establishment of the Standing Committee
(a) This Resolution for internal action by the Assembly should be up and
no exception need be taken to the Committee's terms of reference, although the proposal to create a European Political Authority with limited functions but real powers ought perhaps to have been referred to the General Affairs Commitee (see below) as being more appropriate to that body. This is, however, a matter for the Assembly, and possibly M. Spaak may have wished to have this problem under his own supervision in the Standing Committee. Additional finance should be provided for this Committee's activities.
1,
(b) The Standing Committee is to meet immediately after the Committee of Ministers. In order to enable it to carry out its terms of reference a fairly full report of the action of the Committee of Ministers will have to be available for it. The necessity for this report does not however, that the Committee of Ministers must take firm decisions now on all the recommendations of the Consultative Assembly. Provided that it is fairly full, the communiqué issued at the end of the Committee of Ministers' Meeting should serve the purpose, in addition to the consultations which will doubtless take place between the Committee of Ministers and M. Spaak, as President of the Assembly and Chairman of the Standing Committee.
2. Continuation of the Work of the General Affairs Committee
This Resolution for internal action by the Assembly should be noted, and no exception need be taken to the Committee's terms of reference. Additional finance should be provided for its activities. It is, however, undesirable that the Committee should have the right to obtain the assistance of experts" without further definition; perhaps the Committee of Ministers could suggest that the Standing Committee should add the words "provided that the Authorities to whom the experts are responsible concur."
3. Continuation of the Work of the other Committees of the Assembly
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•
The various Resolutions of the Assembly have provided that its already existing Committees should meet in the interval between Sessions to continue the study of the questions referred to them by the Assembly. Their meetings will be regulated by the Standing Committee, but this Committee will have no control over their work. The only control which the Committee of Ministers has over the establishment of these Committees is that they must approve any requests for expenditure exceeding the amount already allocated in the budget for the Assembly and its activities. To veto the continuance of these Committees between Sessions purely on economy grounds would, however, be undesirable. On the other hand, it is probable that their work, although at a non-governmental level, will overlap seriously with that of existing organisations. This argument, par- ticularly if taken in conjunction with a decision by the Committee of Ministers to set up sub-committees to study the various Resolutions of the Assembly, might make the Assembly more ready to accept a decision that only the Standing Committee, the General Affairs Committee and the Committee of Rules of Procedure, should meet between Sessions.
*
**
Additionangoanelord, therefore, not be provided for the grond between now and the next Session of any of the Assembly's Committees except the Standing Committee, the General Affairs Committee and the Committee of Rules of Procedure. The Assembly might be informed, through the Standing Committee, that if after future Sessions the Assembly can advance better reasons for the other Committees to continue their work between Sessions, the Committee of Ministers would be prepared to consider them.
semblu
4. Extraordinary Session of the Assembly,
ના નીર પસ
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The Assembly has stated that it considers that it would be right to meet in Extraordinary Session in the early part of 1950, and the Standing Committee are to take the necessary steps (ie., presumably an approach to the Committee of Ministers) at the appropriate moment. The main object of this wish on the part of the Assembly was to discuss the admission of Germany. If, as proposed in the main paper, the Committee of Ministers decides at its next meeting that Germany should be admitted as an associate member, it will no doubt be argued that this Extraordinary Session would be useful as enabling German Representa- tives to take their seats without further delay and that it might be convoked by the Committee of Ministers for that purpose. The Foreign Secretary, however, with his colleagues' consent, proposes to oppose this suggestion.
5. Request that Reports of the Committee of Ministers under Article 19 of the Statute should be as detailed as possible and should contain clearly defined proposals on questions transmitted to the Assembly for an opinion. Apart from whatever report is sent to the Standing Committee, no reports will be required till just before the next Session of the Assembly
The Committee of Ministers can take note of this request.sort Mar
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II
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ASSEMBLY ON CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS
General
(1) For practical reasons many of the proposed activities can be better done, and are already being done, on a smaller, e.g., five-Power (Brussels Treaty), basis than on a twelve-Power basis, or in a number of cases on a bilateral basis (Cultural Conventions). U.N.E.S.C.O. is already handling many of those that are suitable for international treatment. The Council of Europe should not undertake what is already being done, or can be better done in a smaller field, and by duplication waste money and trained man-power (which in many countries is not numerous for cultural and scientific purposes). It should devote its first attention to having those things segregated that can most suitably be done on a twelve-Power basis.
(2) The proposal for a European Cultural Centre raises all the
lations in (1) above, and the establishment of this Centre should be resisted, There is no suggestion as to how it would be financed, or how it would be co-ordinated with the machinery of the Council of Europe, and it would be superfluous.
(3) The Council of Europe will, however, need some machinery, and the setting up, under the Committee of Ministers, of a Committee of Cultural and Scientific Advisers (or possibly separate Committees for culture and science) is recommended. The Treasury are anxious to avoid anything costly, particularly of a recurrent nature, and this Committee is proposed first of all on an ad hoc
basis. This Committee might prove less costly, as a continuing instivities
advise the Committee of Ministers and harmonise the Council of Europe's activities to
with those of U.N.E.S.C.O., than the European Cultural Centre. This Committee. would advise on the necessity or otherwise of a counterpart on the Assembly side, and would draw up the European plan for cultural co-operation" (paragraph 8 below), ving
Particular Recommendations of the Assembly
(4) Recommendations concerning a System of Cultural Conventions. This car agaccepted.097
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