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Council of Europe

A Brief History of the Council of Europe

The Europe that awoke in the days following the Liberation was

in a sorry state, torn apart by five years of war. States were

determined to build up their shattered economies, recover their

influence and, above all, ensure that such a tragedy could never

happen again. Winston Churchill was the first to point to the

solution, in his speech of 19 September 1946 in Zurich. According to

him, what was needed was "a remedy which, as if by miracle, would

transform the whole scene and in a few years make all Europe as free

and happy as Switzerland is today. We must build a kind of United

States of Europe".

Movements of various persuasions, but all dedicated to European unity,

were springing up everywhere at the time. All these organisations were

to combine to form the International Committee of the Movements for

European Unity. Its first act was to organise the Hague Congress, on 7

May 1948, remembered as "The Congress of Europe".

A thousand delegates at The Hague

More than a thousand delegates from some twenty countries, together

with a large number of observers, among them political and religious

figures, academics, writers and journalists, attended the Congress.

Its purpose was to demonstrate the breadth of the movements in favour

of European unification, and to determine the objectives which must be

met in order to achieve such a union.

A series of resolutions was adopted at the end of the Congress,

calling,