Organization For European Economic Cooperation

Council of OEECOn April 4, 1950, the Council of OEEC held its annual election. Dr. Dirk U. Stikker, Foreign Minister of the Netherlands and political conciliator of OEEC, was elected chairman of the Council, thus combining the functions of those two OEEC offices. Representatives of Austria and Switzerland were elected as vicechairmen of the Council, while new members of the executive committee of OEEC were Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom; the United Kingdom retained the presidency of this committee and France the vice-presidency and Turkey replaced Switzerland as rapporteur géndral. The Council also decided to do away with the consultative group of eleven which had proved to be unwieldy and to eliminate the practice by which the chairman and vice-chairmen had been expected to spend two days of every week in Paris. It was decided that: 1) the full Council should meet at the ministerial level on the first Friday of every second month; 2) whenever circumstances demanded, the executive committee could be convened at the ministerial level, with the participation of the chairman of the Council and possibly at his call; 3) the chairman was empowered to ask the vice-chairmen to meet with him in Paris at any time to review progress or to discuss action. In response to a request from the Council of Europe, the Council of OEEC appointed a subcommittee of three members to meet with a similar subcommittee from the Council of Europe to discuss closer cooperation. Sweden and Italy were named to the OEEC subcommittee with a third member to be announced later.