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The former Belgian Prime Minister Paul-Henri Spaak came to the Consultative Assembly with prior experience of leading parliamentarians from many nations, having already served four years earlier as the first President of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Convinced that the Strasbourg Assembly could be the embryo of a true European union, he had no qualms in resigning as Belgium’s Foreign Minister to clear the way for his election as President.
He was quick to set a business-like tone, telling delegates within minutes of taking the Chair: “It is my wish, and I am sure it is yours too, that this Assembly should be strong, independent and practical.” He also advised them not to try to do everything at once, to keep their speeches short and to focus on tangible results.
Spaak’s experience of the two world wars – during the first as a prisoner of war, and during the second as a Foreign Minister who had tried in vain to keep Belgium neutral – had convinced him that binding European nations together economically and socially was the only way to prevent future conflict. In his opening speech to the Assembly, he declared: “we are here in Strasbourg to try to make a living reality of the beautiful dream which we had in our youth.”
Sadly, his dream was not to be realised within the Consultative Assembly, despite three years of patient work at its head: after a stormy late-night sitting on 10-11 December 1951, the Assembly rejected a proposed conference to create a European political authority and, devastated by this blow, Spaak resigned.
He was soon to try again in a different forum: in 1955 he helped to draft the Treaty of Rome creating the EEC, and so became one of the “founding fathers” of the European Union. But his experience in Strasbourg was a step on the way which marked him deeply. As he put it to journalists as the first session drew to a close: “I came to Strasbourg profoundly convinced of the need for European Union. I leave Strasbourg profoundly convinced it is possible.”
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