North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Western European Union

On January 17, representatives of the seven signatories of the Western European Union (WEU) met in Paris to consider French proposals for the creation of a European arms control agency, commonly called an arms pool. According to press reports, the French plan envisaged the creation of an arms community whose functions would extend to standardization of arms, establishment of programs of production and placing of orders for arms in member countries, carrying into force of the programs, and planning and coordination of investments to develop production. It was understood that no extension of productive capacity could take place within the community without the permission of a central authority and that agreements would be made with the United States and Canada to integrate military aid programs and offshore procurement policies into the over-all program. The new organization would come into operation in two stages: the first, to extend to the end of 1956, would be a transitional stage in which decisions would be taken unanimously by representatives of governments choosing to belong to a military standardization committee and an armaments production committee; in the second stage, from the beginning of 1957, a definitive regime of an arms community would come into action, composed of a director and a permanent committee of ministers of defense under the authority of the WEU Council. Decisions of the permanent body would require the consent of two-thirds of its members, except on questions of standardization which would require unanimity. An alternative to the permanent committee envisaged in the second phase of the program would be the appointment of commissioners, independent of governments, by the WEU Council which would make decisions by a majority vote.