DISCUSSIONS AT STRASBOURG— Uniting Europe On U.S. Model Is Proposed

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 5

DISCUSSIONS AT STRASBOURG— Uniting Europe On U.S. Model Is Proposed

PARIS, August 16 (Rec 1 p.m.).—A plan for the creation of a United States of Europe within two years was put before the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg today by a Labour member of the British House of Commons, Mr R. W. G. Mackay. His resolution was formally submitted for committee and Assembly action. , . ■ He said he would take the floor this week to speak to the resolution, which calls for the creation of a “European authority with limited functions but real powers.’’ The plan proposes the creation of an Assembly Commission to blueprint the, suggested authority and the early submission of its report to the member Governments and Parliaments so that it may become the chief item on the agenda of the next session.

Mr Mackay said that economic unity was the strength of the United States of America. The Marshall Plan should be made contingent upon European unification —even withheld until unification was realised. The Assembly should become a European Parliament next year with power to write a federal constitution and set up a Federal Government of Europe, similar to the United States of America. Caution Urged Earlier in an Assembly debate on changes in the political structure of Europe to bring about greater unity among members, Lord Layton (Britain) warned that the creation of a United Europe Federation in the near future was out of the question. He urged that instead the European Council nations should concentrate for the time being on increasing their economic co-operation and drawing up a European human rights charter. . x There were three main stumbling blocks to early European federation, he said. First was the fact that such an organisation never existed before. Secondly, there was Britain’s special relation with the Commonwealth. Thirdly, several European Council nations do not belong to the Atlantic Pact defence group.

Lord Layton proposed the setting up of a committee of experts to examine the idea of federation and report . back to the Assembly in a year. Mr Thorkil Kristensen (Norway) urged the unification of European forces—military, economic and cultural. “We cannot be satisfied with a state of affairs in which the European countries depend upon outside aid as at present,” he said. Admission Of Germany? For the first time the question of the . admission of Germany to the European Assembly was introduced today in concrete form by the Dutch delegate, Mr van der Goss. .He placed at the top of a series of unifying proposals the admission of Germany at the Assembly’s next session in August, 1950.