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A historic gathering
Archive film footage and photographs of the first meeting of the Assembly, on the 10th August 1949, still convey the sense of excitement that must have prevailed on that mid-summer afternoon: the crowds lining Place Brant, shepherded by gendarmes; the participants sweeping in open-topped vehicles between freshly-painted flagpoles up to the steps of the University; the growing hubbub of conversation, in many European tongues, as the hall gradually filled with 100 MPs and statesmen. It was an unprecedented gathering, on whose shoulders sat the hopes and dreams of a generation of Europeans weary of war and yearning for a new beginning.
A historic address
At 3.45pm sharp came the rap of the gavel, as the buzz of conversation faded, and the words of the first Provisional President Edouard Herriot – the radical French politician who had helped steer the Council of Europe into existence – rang through the hall: “I declare open the first sitting of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe.” Describing himself as a “an old French parliamentarian who has never ceased, in spite of the harsh disappointments of events, to labour for a closer association between the peoples,” Mr Herriot delivered a richly eloquent address based on a straightforward principle: “We merely desire to associate ourselves in order to defend these two great acquisitions of human civilisation: freedom and law.”
‘All things will be possible’
Giving a vote of thanks to the Provisional President for his address, the British MP Herbert Morrison declared: “You have inaugurated a great new chapter in European history. It is for us to lay the foundations well, and then all things will be possible.” The Assembly decided to elect its President the following day, to allow time for consultation, bringing the proceedings of the first sitting to a close.
