CAB129-37 — Page 16

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HIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT)

SECRET

C.P.(49) 203

25TH OCTOBER, 1949

CABINET

COPY NO.

だ

PROPOSALS FOR THE ECONOMIC UNIFICATION OF EUROPE

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

and the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Proposals envisaging further 'economic unification' of Europe are now caning forward in connection both with the Council of Europe and 0.3.1.C. In particular they are

almost certain to arise at the meetings of the Consultative Group of Ministers of O.E.E.C. and of the Council of O.E.E.C. at Ministerial level which will take place in Paris at the end of this week. It will therefore be necessary for His Majesty's Government to have their views settled by 27th October at the latest.

Recommendations of the Consultative Assembly

2*

The recommendations of the Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted at Strasbourg in September, the text of which is reproduced at Annex A, are based on the broad assumption that 'European Economic Union' of the participating countries is an agreed aim. This emerges clearly in the Preamble (paragraphs 4 and 5) and in Section I (paragraphs 1 and 4(b)). This document will come before the Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg at the beginning of November, and they will be expected to draw up and submit to the Assembly, though probably not until its next ordinary session in the summer of 1950, proposals for the implementation of these recommendations. In setting this work in hand it will be necessary for United Kingdom Ministers to have reached decisions not only on the United Kingdom's attitude to the broad issue of policy, but also on the nature of the relationship of 0.1.D.C. to the Council of Europe.

Developments in the sphere of 0.E.E.C.

3.

From its inception a basic objective of the European Recovery Programme in the minds of important sections of American opinion has been to promote the 'unification' of Europe. So far as the participating countries are concerned, they undertook, in Part I of the Convention under which O.E.E.C. was established, general obligations directed towards co-operation and mutual help. There was also an undertaking to 'study' Customs Unions or analogous arrangements such as free trade areas, and to co-operate in reducing tariffs and other barriers to the expansion of trade. So far as the United States is concerned the Economic Co-operation Act was amended in 1949 to include the words 'It is further declared to be the policy of the people of the United States to encourage the unification of Europe...'; and Mr. Harriman and Mr. Finletter have both stressed that this amondment was the expression of a deep-seated feeling among the AmeriPagepbopfd097Again, Mr. Truman stated inPagedé ch1097

29th August that closer ties of economic union in Europe werd essential for a better world.

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