Raymond

Barre

Prime Minister of the French Republic

Speech made to the Assembly

Tuesday, 30 September 1980

All speechesQuestions and answers

First of all, Mr President, I should like to thank you for your invitation, which has brought me the very real pleasure of being with you in Strasbourg today and has also given me a welcome opportunity of meeting you again, since we worked together for four years in Brussels.

Ladies and gentlemen, Strasbourg – that city which for so many years was a strategic prize – has now become a special centre for encounter and discussion. Many innovations have seen the light here. It was here, immediately after the war, that the Council of Europe, the first intergovernmental institution to give a central role to a parliamentary body, was born. In its train, and following the conclusion of the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty of 1951, another parliamentary assembly was established here, which now includes the universally elected representatives of nine European nations.

The special role of Strasbourg, which has become the capital of Europe of the Nine, as it has of Europe of the Twenty-one, is to act as a meeting place. In this connection, the accession of Spain and Portugal to membership of the Council of Europe has strengthened the bond which already existed between Northern and Mediterranean Europe.

The Council of Europe upholds a political ideal, an ideal to which France is profoundly committed. In fact, membership of the Council of Europe constitutes an act of faith in democracy.

Finally, thanks to the flexibility of its procedures, the Council of Europe opens its doors to the world beyond Europe, welcoming a wide range of distinguished visitors. In recent years, you have received Mr Léopold Senghor, Mr Gaston Thorn, Mr Mario Soares, Mr Helmut Schmidt and Mr Francisco Sa Carneiro.

I welcome the presence, this morning, of Mr Huang Hua, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

Your Assembly, ladies and gentlemen, is regional in its composition, but the attention which you pay to other continents gives it a unique and special place among the world’s political forums. This, too, confirms Strasbourg’s status as a centre for meetings and dialogue.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my presence here today bears witness to the interest which my country takes in the work which you have done in the past, but also, and above all, in that which you have still to do. It is the French Government’s wish that your dynamism and innovative spirit may prove a source of both encouragement and inspiration to the governments of Council of Europe member states.

In this troubled and uncertain epoch, all those who exercise responsibility must be able to look to the fundamental values of our civilisation and our free societies and, as you do here, think things out and make proposals. The difficulties which are currently affecting the world are universal. They affect the relations of citizens and government, they shake international détente and, finally, they upset all exchange and particularly internal and international economic exchange. They, therefore, stand as a direct challenge to the institutions which command our loyalty because they are the cornerstones of our free, self-governing societies: our social institutions, our local authorities and our firms.

If it cannot provide direct solutions, the Council of Europe can at least help us to define these grave problems more accurately. Your institution upholds a political ideal. It has intensified and encouraged effective co-operation among the twenty-one member states and it can play an active role in solving the major economic problems to which world change exposes Europe.

The Council of Europe upholds a political ideal, an ideal to which France is profoundly committed. In fact, membership of the Council of Europe constitutes an act of faith in democracy.

The first article of your Statute affirms that “the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals which are their common heritage...”

These “ideals” or, in the words of the preamble to your Statute, these “spiritual and moral values” are individual liberty, political freedom and the rule of law.

It is thus to the practical defence of democracy that you dedicate yourselves. Moreover, of the more than a hundred international conventions which you have now concluded, the one which reflects the most honour on your organisation is the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950.

There can be no genuine democracy without practical protection of the citizen and you have established procedures and institutions to ensure that the freedoms proclaimed in the text are respected in practice.

The existence of this collective system for the defence of political democracy and of these accessible and practical instruments for the protection of human rights should reassure and convince all those who doubt that any acceptable solution can be found to the problem of relations between the citizen and the state.

The Council of Europe encourages the growth of peaceful relations between the nations – and you know, ladies and gentlemen, how dedicated my own country is to the cause of peace, progress and co-operation in the world.

Numerous endeavours have been made along these lines. Your Committee of Ministers and Consultative Assembly have taken initiatives, in the form of declarations, suggestions and proposals, for the harmonious development of relations between countries – between member states and between member states and non-member states of the Council – in the fields of foreign, economic, social and cultural policy.

Within the Twenty-one, the many conventions concluded by the Council seek to facilitate the movement of persons, to harmonise national legislative systems and to provide maximum protection for all the citizens of Europe. This patient, painstaking endeavour is working towards the establishment of a “European administrative and legal area”, in which differences no longer act as barriers.

The work which the Council of Europe has done in bringing its European member states closer together makes it particularly well-equipped to deal with the problems involved in preparation of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The recommendations which your Assembly sent to the Helsinki negotiators reflect your determination to go to the heart of things. In 1973, you called for increased freedom of movement for persons, ideas and information across the frontiers of Europe. More recently, you have emphasised practical difficulties complaining of the failure to achieve substantial progress in respect of contacts between persons, recognition of the right to emigrate and the narrow, repressive control of information exercised by the governments of several Eastern countries.

In this area your realistic view of security and co-operation between the countries of the East and the West represents the only lucid and effective approach. Détente, ladies and gentlemen, has been seriously affected by the military occupation of Afghanistan, and the resulting international situation weighs, and will continue to weigh, on the Madrid meeting.

Nonetheless, the thirty-five delegations present in Madrid must beware of indulging in a fruitless confrontation of ideologies or of political and social systems. Nor must they let themselves be blinded by the facts nor content themselves with mere appearances. As far as my own country is concerned, I can tell you that these will be her twin concerns in Madrid.

This path is a narrow one, but it is the only one which can now lead to a serious reaffirmation of the principles and spirit of détente and to its restoration in practice. Like you, we distrust declarations of principle which are not followed by appropriate action. For France, détente must be a visible reality and it must, of course, be indivisible.

To finish with the conference on collective security in Europe, I applaud the Committee of Ministers’ decision to hold its second annual meeting in October, rather than November, since this will provide a useful opportunity for a last exchange of views before Madrid.

Finally, the Council of Europe can help us to cope with those changes on the world scene to which my government is trying to adjust France. Thanks to the favourable international climate, Western Europe has achieved a brilliant economic performance in the last three decades. In 1950, the collective gross national product for the European member states of OECD stood at half the figure for the United States; it is now 30% higher than the US figure.

In the last decade, however, the international economic situation has undergone a profound change. The price of a barrel of oil has increased eighteen times, inflation has become general, balances of payments have suffered structural disturbances, economic growth has slowed down and unemployment has everywhere increased. Europe, which is heavily dependent on outside sources for its energy and raw materials and on the world market as an outlet, must transform whole sections of its economic apparatus.

The path which we must follow is dictated by the constraints which weigh upon us. First of all, Europe must cut down on its dependence on oil. France, for her part, has set herself the task of reducing her reliance on oil to one-third of her energy requirements by 1990. This represents a new energy strategy, a strategy to which all Europeans must adapt without flinching. It includes necessarily energy saving, the development of nuclear power, of coal and gas reserves and the discovery and exploitation of entirely new energy sources. In this sphere, hesitation or delay by any European country not only jeopardises its own future, but also affects the future of its partners.

Secondly, Europe must preserve her outside markets by trying to maintain free trade, as the OECD countries pointed out in their joint declaration last June. The successful conclusion of the multilateral trade negotiations a year ago marked a step in this direction. At the same time, if this opening-up of markets is to be permanent and effective, it must not be disturbed by sudden changes, which throw whole sectors of industry into chaos and create employment problems which are socially and politically intolerable.

We must thus take, at international level, the action required to secure a steady growth in trade – this is the only way of preserving free trade in the long term.

Europe’s third priority must be the attempt to stabilise monetary and financial relations, not only within Europe but throughout the world economy. We are paying a high price, ladies and gentlemen, for the inflationary wave of the last fifteen years and for the disturbance of the international monetary system which has led to its collapse and to general monetary instability. Greater discipline is needed in the industrial countries: internally, by seeking to slow down the rise in production costs, wages and prices; and internationally, by constantly trying to achieve greater monetary stability. The establishment of the European monetary system has marked a turning point here enabling the countries which have joined to establish an area of monetary stability whose influence extends even to countries outside.

This system is restricted to the Community, but I hope that the European countries which cannot join will nonetheless try to ensure that their currencies develop parallel to those within the system. In this way, the whole of Western Europe can become an oasis of monetary stability in the world.

Finally, and I see this as a fundamental aim, economic co-operation within Europe and outside must concentrate to a far greater extent on the fight against poverty. Unfortunately it is probable that for most of the inhabitants of several continents the major problem of the 1980s will be hunger and the halt called to growth by the massive increase in their oil bills. In spite of the problems which face our own countries, we must assist the world’s poorest nations. In doing so, we shall be working both for justice and for peace.

All the developments to which I have referred are bound to have major repercussions on the economic and social structures of our countries. The Council of Europe which, under its Statute, has the task not only of safeguarding and realising the ideals which are its members’ common heritage but also of facilitating their economic and social progress, has a part to play in the great task of adapting the economies of European countries to match the new realities of the world economy.

The Council of Europe can compare its members’ experiences, assess their human and social consequences and highlight the most promising projects. It can also call on other parts of the world for aid. In short, through its own work and research, it can help to create a climate of experiment, emulation and innovation. Through its recommendations and opinions, it can help to ensure that member states do not overlook the interests of other member states or non-member states at a time when international interdependence is increasing steadily, creating a need for international co-operation.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in accepting your invitation to Strasbourg, a French and a European city, I knew that I was undertaking an important journey. Reviewing the work done by the Council of Europe, I was able to appreciate the full extent of the progress made since the immediate post-war era on the path to the practical, and still more the moral, unification of Europe.

In speaking of the economic difficulties which our countries are currently facing, I have highlighted the problem of mutual support which we shall have to display among ourselves.

Allow me, in conclusion, on behalf of the French Government, to pay tribute to your work and to express the hope that it may continue to serve as a fruitful example to Europe and the world. (Applause)