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Report | Doc. 877 | 10 October 1958
Activities of the Working Party on relations with national Parliaments
Working party on relations with national parliaments
A. Draft Recommendation
(open)The Assembly,
Considering paragraph 9 of the Special Message of the Committee of Ministers transmitting to the Consultative Assembly the Programme of Work of t he Council of Europe (Doc. 238), in which it expresses the belief that the impact of Assembly debates on public opinion would be increased if national Parliaments could be persuaded to devote more time to discussing Council of Europe questions;
Emphasising that the Committee of Ministers, through its Chairman-in-office and in its Supplementary Report of 3rd October 1958 (Doc. 863) has repeatedly referred to the assistance members of the Assembly could give to the work of the Council of Europe by action taken by them in their national Parliaments;
Wishing to obtain this assistance from national Parliaments in order to achieve the aims of t h e Council of Europe;
Believing in the advantage to be derived from using this means to make known to a wider public the work of the Consultative Assembly and the achievements of the Committee of Ministers;
Recalling its Resolution 104 and 135 on setting up and strengthening the Working Party on relations with national Parliaments, which transmits to national Parliaments after each part-Session selected texts adopted by this Assembly,
Recommends that the Committee of Ministers request Member Governments to keep their national Parliaments regularly informed, so far as possible, of the decisions taken by the Committee of Ministers.
B. Explanatory Memorandum
(open)1. INTRODUCTION
1. The Working Party on relations with
national Parliaments, set up on 25th October 1956,
in accordance with paragraphs 4 and 7 of Resolution
104, has the honour to submit to the Assembly
i ts second annual report.
2. The report is a continuation of the
two preceding reports submitted (Docs. 640 and
715) and covers the period 1st October 1957 to
30th September 1958.
2. ACTIVITIES
3. In accordance with Resolution 135 of
28th October 1957 the Working Party increased
the number of its members from seven to fifteen
and held four meetings during the period under
review. At its meetings the Working Party:
a. considered the 48 texts adopted by the Assembly during the period covered by this report and selected 24 of them as suitable for action to be taken in national Parliaments;
b. reconsidered the 45 texts selected during the previous year, of which 18, on which no appropriate action had in the meantime been taken, were again transmitted to the national Parliaments;
c. took steps to expedite the signing or ratification of Council of Europe conventions and agreements;
d. improved its working methods in the light of experience.
4. The Working Party has been encouraged
by the growing interest shown by members of
the Assembly, as reflected in the results given
below. But the Committee of Ministers, too, has, through its Chairman-in-office, repeatedly
reminded Members of the Assembly of the assistance
they could give to the Council of Europe
by taking action in their national Parliaments.
5. As in the previous year the Working
Party has been aided in its work:
a. by spokesmen;
b. by the secretariats of national delegations and;
c. by the Secretariat-General at Strasbourg.
Spokesmen
6. The Working Party would like to draw
attention to the wording of paragraph 3 of
Resolution 135, adopted on 28th October, 1957:
" The members of the Working Party
will continue to be assisted by 'spokesmen' in
the national Parliaments when national delegations
so decide. " The notable progress made
up to that time was indeed in some measure
due to the assistance given by the spokesmen.
It must, however, be pointed out that for most
national delegations the members of the Working
Party also act as spokesmen and that there are
therefore very few Representatives who are
merely spokesmen.
7. To enable each Member of Parliament
to assume his manifold tasks, the Working Party
again draws the attention of national delegations
to the benefits of dividing up the work among
its members and taking advantage of the option
of appointing several spokesmen.
Secretariats of national delegations
8. The Working Party is once more grateful
for the invaluable help it has received from
the Secretariats of national delegations, either in
the form of assistance to its members and spokesmen
or of information supplied to the Secretariat-
General at Strasbourg concerning the action
taken in national Parliaments to further the
interests of the Council of Europe. The Working
Party is well aware that such assistance from the
secretariats is often given in difficult circumstances,
since in most cases their staff has other
important work to do as part of its normal
parliamentary duties or, in other cases, the staff
does not belong to the Parliaments but to the
Ministries of Foreign Affairs
9. Experience has shown that the best
results are obtained where officials belonging
to the Parliaments in question are appointed to
work in close collaboration with the Working
Party. The reason is obvious. The officials
are in constant touch with the members of their
delegation, for whom they often draft documents
intended to support Consultative Assembly texts.
They see to it that the necessary signatures are
obtained and are able to inform the Secretariat-
General at Strasbourg immediately of any steps
taken in their own Parliament in connection with
Council of Europe affairs. In short, these secretaries
can, by virtue of their position, make a
valuable contribution in regard to the basic
questions with which the Working Party is
concerned.
10. Secretaries from Ministries of Foreign
Affairs, owing to their dependence upon the Government,
are unable to act as freely as parliamentary
officials. Their primary concern must
therefore be to see to it that the members of
their, delegation are supplied with practical
facilities during Assembly Sessions or at committee
meetings.
11. For this reason the Working Party
urges national delegations to consider strengthening
their secretariats and submits the following
suggestions:
a. Permanent parliamentary secretariats might be set up to deal solely with European parliamentary affairs or the affairs of international parliamentary organisations; or ,
b. their present secretaries should be relieved, if possible, from part of their normal parliamentary duties; or
c. in cases where the secretarial services a r e provided by staff from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a parliamentary official should be instructed to collaborate closely with the responsible delegation secretary.
12. The assistance given by the Secretariat-
General at Strasbourg is referred to later
under the heading " Improvement in Working
Methods ".
Selection of texts
13. A thorough study of 93 texts enabled
the Working Party to establish some interesting
facts.
14. It would, first of all, however, like to
make the general observation that the Assembly
is to be congratulated on its growing tendency to
concentrate on questions of current interest to
member countries, instead of dissipating its energies
over problems of only secondary importance.
The need for this was emphasised by the Working
Party in its interim report (Doc. 640). This
trend can be seen from the following table:
| Texts adopted by the Assembly | October 1956 October 1957 | October 1957 October 1958 |
|---|---|---|
| Opinion | 6 | 3 |
| Recommendations | 46 | 22 |
| Resolutions | 30 | 23 |
| Total | 82 | 48 |
15. With regard to the selection of texts on
which action could well be taken in national
Parliaments, the Working Party mentioned in
its previous report that it had tried to reduce
their number appreciably in order to concentrate
and intensify efforts to support them in
national Parliaments.
16. The Working Party has continued along
these lines, as the following table shows:
| October 1956 October 1957 | October 1957 October;i958 | |
|---|---|---|
| TTexts examined. | 82 | 48 |
| Texts selected. | 45 | 24 |
17. The Working Party also reviewed the 45
texts previously selected, retaining 18 of them
on which no adequate action had yet been taken,
and again forwarding them with its comments
to- the national Parliaments; 27 texts were for
various reasons discarded.
18. The quality of the texts, a matter to
which the Working Party devoted a special
section in its previous report, is closely connected
with their selection. The Working Party had
asked that recommendations should contain
only clear, precise and practical proposals, so
that they might be favourably received
19. When reviewing the 48 texts adopted
by the Assembly since October 1957, the Working
Party found that its wishes had to a large extent . been met, a fact which explains their more practical
impact on the Committee of Ministers
and national Parliaments. It must, however,
be pointed out once more t h a t the formula requesting
the Committee of Ministers " to take all
possible steps " or " ensure that " or " consider
the possibility " not only makes it impossible
for the Committee of Ministers to obtain a clear
idea of the Assembly's requests, but also makes
i t very difficult for the Working Party to suggest
measures which would gain support for the
texts in the national Parliaments, apart from
the fact that such vague requests make it impossible
to establish later how far the real wishes
of the Assembly have been met.
20. The Working Party is aware of the
difficulty of reconciling in the committees divergent
points of view - which is often responsible
for such loose, imprecise wording as that mentioned
above. It therefore again recommends
that, whenever possible, the Committee should
vote on controversial questions.
Measures to expedite the signing or ratification of Council of Europe Conventions and Agreements
21. The Working Party has kept its members
and the spokesmen informed of the number of
signatures and ratifications of the Council of
Europe conventions and agreements and has
requested them to speak in their own Parliaments
or to take individual steps with the appropriate
members of their Government in support of
conventions and agreements which have not
yet been signed or ratified by their countries..
Improvement in working methods
22. The Working Party welcomed the decision
of the Committee of Ministers to create,
a staff post at the level of Secretary to assist
members of the Working Party. As a result, it
has been able to take various steps to ensure
that its work may proceed more smoothly.
2.1. Register of action taken on texts adopted by the Assembly
23. The Secretariat has opened a register
which it keeps up to date, showing the action
taken by the Committee of Ministers and national
Parliaments on the texts selected by the Working
Party.
2.2. Collaboration with Assembly Committees
24. In order to facilitate the discussion in
committee of the " action taken on texts adopted
within the terms of reference of the Committee "
(which is automatically included in the agenda
of each meeting, in accordance with Resolution
62), the Working Party regularly supplies
an extract from the above-mentioned " Register
of action taken " for each of the texts.
25. Furthermore, Chairmen of Committees
have been requested to prepare a short opinion
for the Working Party, each time a text is reconsidered
by its Committee, stating:
whether new measures should be taken by the Working Party to gain support for the text in question by action in the national Parliaments;
or whether the text may be discarded (if adequate action has been taken on it, or if for various reasons it has become pointless).
2.3. Appointment of a Rapporteur to suggest texts for selection and send them to national Parliaments
26. In order that the Working Party shall
be fully informed of all the facts before taking
decisions it has appointed a Rapporteur whose
duty it is:
to suggest texts for selection by the Working Party and prepare comments on them;
to report on the action taken on texts already selected, and to suggest either further steps to support them in the national Parliaments or their deletion from the Working Party's agenda.
2.4. Information on the activities of national Parliaments concerning the affairs of the Council of Europe
27. As explained in the Working Party's
previous reports, its Secretariat collects and
distributes news from the various national Parliaments
in order to keep delegations abreast of
the work in progress in other Parliaments. The
news is sent out in the form of a " circular "
giving an account of the activities of national
Parliaments with regard to Council of Europe
affairs.
28. In order to receive more complete news,
the Working Party has decided to initiate methods of close collaboration between the secretariats
of national delegations and its own Secretariat.
In this connection the Working Party again
emphasizes how necessary it is to accord the
secretariats of national delegations the material
facilities suggested in paragraph 9 above.
2.5. Translations of adopted texts
29. On request, the Secretariat of the Working Party has supplied a few texts in various
languages, and hopes that Members of the
Assembly will avail themselves of this service
when occasion demands, as it is anxious to assist
spokesmen and other Members of the Assembly
in obtaining the documents they wish to deposit
with their national Parliaments.
30. The Working Party has been generally
concerned with the way in which national Parliaments
are kept informed of the work of Council
of Europe institutions. It finds that:
in every Parliament, the texts adopted by the Assembly are placed in the libraries;
in some Parliaments, Members of the Consultative Assembly submit reports on their work at Strasbourg as well as comments on the texts adopted;
in one country, the Government asks Parliament each year for its opinion on some of the texts adopted by the Consultative Assembly.
31. Although the Assembly's requests are
to some extent known to the Parliaments, the
Working Party has not been able to discover in
what way Parliaments are informed of action
taken in response to the Assembly's requests, that
is to say, of the work done by the Committee of
Ministers.
32. It has been found that if the national
delegations merely place the texts adopted by
the Assembly in the libraries, or submit a progress
report to their Parliaments, this does not in
practice lead to supporting action being taken
by Representatives on the subject in question.
33. For this reason the Working Party
transmits all important texts to national Parliaments
as explained above. The attitude taken
by the Parliaments, after they and their competent
committees have considered the texts, not
only serves as a guide to the Foreign Ministers,
and helps them to define their position at meetings of the Committee of Ministers, but also keeps alive
parliamentary interest in the subjects dealt with
by the Council of Europe.
34. If the national Parliaments receive
requests from the Assembly in this way, it is
only logical that they should also be told how
such requests have been met, that is to say, they
should be kept informed, so far as possible, of
the work the Committee of Ministers. Results are
all t h a t matter, and the Working Party believes
that to inform the national Parliaments of the
Resolutions passed by the Committee of Ministers
would be a means not only of interesting them
more than hitherto in Council of Europe questions
but also of bringing the latter to the knowledge
of a wider public.
35. For these reasons the Working Party
has the honour to submit to the Assembly the
above draft Recommendation which it has
unanimously adopted.
3. RESULTS
36. During the period covered by this report,
205 cases were reported where action was taken
in the Parliaments of member countries in support
of Consultative Assembly texts or Council of
Europe Conventions or general debates held on
Council of Europe affairs. Compared with the
corresponding figure for the previous year (119),
the activities of national Parliaments in this
field have been considerably intensified.
37. The following table gives details of these
activities, the figures for the previous year being
shown in brackets:
38. Of the 42 texts selected or reconsidered
by the Working Party, 35 have been subject of
action in national Parliaments; most of them on
several occasions.
39. The development of the activity recorded
above thus confirms that the work undertaken
by the Working Party has given satisfactory
results. Your Working Party desires to thank
all Members of the Consultative Assembly who,
by their work in their national Parliaments, have
contributed in great measure to this success.
| Countries | Documents tabled | General reports or debates | Individual approache | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | 11 (4) | 9 (3) | 13 (6) | 33 (13) |
| Belgium | 3 (5) | 3 (5) | ||
| Denmark | 2 (1) | 5 (1) | 8 | 15 (2) |
| France | (3) | 4 (2) | 4 (5) | |
| Fed. Rep. of Germany | 41 (36) | 3 (2) | 44 (38) | |
| Greece | 1 | 1 | ||
| Iceland | ||||
| Ireland | (1) | (1) | (2) | |
| Italy | 15 (5) | (5) | 5 (3) | 20 (13) |
| Luxembourg | 2 (1) | 2 (1) | ||
| Netherlands | (6) | 5 | 5 (6) | |
| Norway | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Sweden | 18 | 1 (1) | 19 (1) . | |
| Turkey | ||||
| United Kingdom | 56 (33) | 1 (1) | 27 (1) | 28 (31) |
| Total | 119 (89) | 54 (18) | 32 (12) | 205 (119) |