'Article 341 1

The Consultative Assembly may be convened in extraordinary sessions upon the initiative either of the Committee of Ministers or of the President of the Assembly after agreement between them, such agreement also to determine the date and place of the sessions.

Article 35

Unless the Consultative Assembly decides otherwise, its debates shall be conducted in public.

CHAPTER VI

SECRETARIAT

Article 36

(a) The Secretariat shall consist of a Secretary-General, a Deputy Secretary-General and such other staff as may be required.

(b) The Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Consultative Assembly on the recommendation of the Committee of Ministers.

(c) The remaining staff of the Secretariat shall be appointed by the Secretary-General, in accordance with the administrative regulations. (d) No member of the Secretariat shall hold any salaried office from any Government or be a member of the Consultative Assembly or of any national legislature or engage in any occupation incompatible with his duties.

(e) Every member of the staff of the Secretariat shall make a solemn declaration affirming that his duty is to the Council of Europe and that he will perform his duties conscientiously, uninfluenced by any national considerations, and that he will not seek or receive instructions in connexion with the performance of his duties from any Government or any authority external to the Council and will refrain from any action which might reflect on his position as an international official responsible only to the Council. In the case of the SecretaryGeneral and the Deputy Secretary-General this declaration shall be made before the Committee, and in the case of all other members of the staff, before the Secretary-General.

(f) Every Member shall respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-General and the staff of the Secretariat and not seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities.

Article 37

(a) The Secretariat shall be located at the seat of the Council.

(b) The Secretary-General is responsible to the Committee of Ministers for the work of the Secretariat. Amongst other things, he shall, subject to Article 38 (d), provide such secretariat and other assistance as the Consultative Assembly may require.

1 As amended in May 1951.

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CHAPTER VII

FINANCE

Article 381

(a) Each Member shall bear the expenses of its own representation in the Committee of Ministers and in the Consultative Assembly.

(b) The expenses of the Secretariat and all other common expenses shall be shared between all Members in such proportions as shall be determined by the Committee on the basis of the population of Members.

The contributions of an Associate Member shall be determined by the Committee.

(c) In accordance with the financial regulations, the Budget of the Council shall be submitted annually by the Secretary-General for adoption by the Committee.

(a) The Secretary-General shall refer to the Committee requests from the Assembly which involve expenditure exceeding the amount already allocated in the Budget for the Assembly and its activities.

(e) The Secretary-General shall also submit to the Committee of Ministers an estimate of the expenditure to which the implementation of each of the recommendations presented to the Committee would give rise. Any resolution the implementation of which requires additional expenditure shall not be considered as adopted by the Committee of Ministers unless the Committee has also approved the corresponding estimates for such additional expenditure.

Article 39

The Secretary-General shall each year notify the Government of each Member of the amount of its contribution, and each Member shall pay to the Secretary-General the amount of its contribution, which shall be deemed to be due on the date of its notification, not later than six months after that date.

CHAPTER VIII

PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES

Article 40

(a) The Council of Europe, Representatives of Members and the Secretariat shall enjoy in the territories of its Members such privileges and immunities as are reasonably necessary for the fulfilment of their functions. These immunities shall include immunity for all Representatives in the Consultative Assembly from arrest and all legal proceedings in the territories of all Members, in respect of words spoken and votes cast in the debates of the Assembly or its committees or commissions.

(b) The Members undertake as soon as possible to enter into 1 Paragraph (e) of Article 38 was added in May 1951.

agreement for the purpose of fulfilling the provisions of paragraph (a) above. For this purpose the Committee of Ministers shall recommend to the Governments of Members the acceptance of an Agreement defining the privileges and immunities to be granted in the territories of all Members. In addition a special Agreement shall be concluded with the Government of the French Republic defining the privileges and immunities which the Council shall enjoy at its seat.

CHAPTER IX

AMENDMENTS

Article 41

(a) Proposals for the amendments of this Statute may be made in the Committee of Ministers or, in the conditions provided for in Article 23, in the Consultative Assembly.

(b) The Committee shall recommend and cause to be embodied in a Protocol those amendments which it considers to be desirable.

(c) An amending Protocol shall come into force when it has been signed and ratified on behalf of two-thirds of the Members.

(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraphs of this Article, amendments to Articles 23-35, 38 and 39 which have been approved by the Committee and by the Assembly, shall come into force on the date of the certificate of the Secretary-General, transmitted to the Governments of Members, certifying that they have been so approved. This paragraph shall not operate until the conclusion of the second ordinary session of the Assembly.

CHAPTER X

FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 42

(a) This Statute shall be ratified. Ratifications shall be deposited with the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.2

(b) The present Statute shall come into force as soon as seven instruments of ratification have been deposited. The Government of the United Kingdom shall transmit to all signatory Governments a certificate declaring that the Statute has entered into force, and

1 British Treaty Series No. 34 (1953), Cmd. 8852.

Instruments of ratification were deposited by the signatories in the following order and on the date indicated: Denmark, July 14, 1949; Sweden, July 20, 1949; the United Kingdom, July 26, 1949; Ireland, July 30, 1949; Norway, Aug. 2, 1949; Italy and Luxembourg, Aug. 3, 1949; France, Aug. 4, 1949; the Netherlands, Aug. 5, 1949; and Belgium, Aug. 8, 1949. Instruments of accession were deposited by the following countries in the order and on the dates indicated: Greece, Aug. 9, 1949; Iceland, Mar. 7, 1950; Turkey, Apr. 13, 1950; the Saar,* May 13, 1950; and the Federal Republic of Germany,* July 13, 1950.

(*Admitted as associate members. Germany became a full member, May 2,

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giving the names of the Members of the Council of Europe on that date.

(c) Thereafter each other signatory shall become a party to this Statute as from the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification.

In witness whereof the undersigned, being duly authorised thereto, have signed the present Statute.

Done at London, this 5th day of May, 1949, in English and French, both texts being equally authentic, in a single copy which shall remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the United Kingdom which shall transmit certified copies to the other signatory Governments.

The European Payments Union

10. AGREEMENT, SEPTEMBER 19, 19501

The Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Austria, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Denmark, the French Republic, the Kingdom of Greece, the Republic of Ireland, the Republic of Iceland, the Italian Republic, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Portuguese Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Sweden, the Swiss Confederation, the Turkish Republic; and the Commander of the British-United States Zone of the Free Territory of Trieste;

DESIRING to establish among themselves a multilateral system of payments in order that trade, both visible and invisible, may proceed on a multilateral basis between them and the monetary areas associated with them;

CONSIDERING that such a system of payments must be designed to facilitate to the largest possible measure among the Contracting Parties 1 British Misc. No. 14 (1950), Cmd. 8064.

The Agreement has not definitively entered into force; provisionally it has been effective as of July 1, 1950 (see Protocol of Provisional Application of the Agreement, infra). Supplementary Protocols (not reprinted here): No. 2 of Aug. 4, 1951, British Misc. No. 12 (1951), Cmd. 8372; No. 3 of July 11, 1952, British Misc. No. 13 (1952), Cmd. 8644; No. 4 of June 30, 1953, Irish Treaty Series No. 9 (1953); No. 5 of June 30, 1954, British Misc. No. 25 (1954), Cmd. 9257; No. 6 of June 29, 1955, British Misc. No. 19 (1955), Cmd. 9601; unnumbered of Aug. 5, 1955 (Protocol Amending the Protocol of Provisional Application), ibid.; No. 7 of Aug. 5, 1955, ibid. Provisional entry into force of Protocols Nos. 2 through 6: Aug. 4, 1951, July 11, 1952, July 1, 1953, July 1, 1954; the unnumbered Protocol entered into force on the date of signature, Aug. 5, 1955; and the date of provisional entry into force of Protocol No. 7 was Aug. 1, 1955; the provisional entry into force date for Article I, and for the remainder of the articles was July 1, 1955. For clarification of the complex arrangements relating to the implementation of the agreement, see the article by Louis C. Boochever, Jr., "The European Payments Union"; Department of State Bulletin, May 12, 1952, pp. 732-736.

the liberalisation, on a non-discriminatory basis, of trade and invisible transactions; to assist the Contracting Parties in their efforts to become independent of extraordinary outside assistance; to encourage the Contracting Parties to achieve or maintain a high and stable level of trade and employment, bearing in mind the need for their internal financial stability; and, finally, to assist the transition from their present situation to that which will succeed at the termination of the European Recovery Programme by providing them, in particular, both with resources to play in part the rôle of gold and foreign currency reserves and also with the possibility and incentive, should their position improve, to strengthen their reserves in gold and foreign currencies;

CONSIDERING that such a system of payments should permit the maintenance of desirable forms of specialisation in trade while facilitating a return to full multilateral trade, and should at the same time assist a return to the general convertibility of currencies;

CONSIDERING that such a system of payments must also be so designed that it can remain in force at the end of the period of operation of the European Recovery Programme and operate until it is possible to establish, by other methods, a multilateral system of European payments;

CONSIDERING, however, that the maintenance of the internal and external financial equilibrium of the Contracting Parties is an indispensable condition for the proper operation of this system of payments;

HAVING REGARD to the adoption on 18th August, 1950, of a Resolution of the Council of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (hereinafter referred to as the "Council") approving the text of the present Agreement, recommending it to Members of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (hereinafter referred to as the "Organisation") for signature, and providing that the Organisation should assume the functions envisaged under the present Agreement as from the date from which it will apply; HAVE AGREED as follows:

PART I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1

EUROPEAN PAYMENTS UNION

The Contracting Parties hereby establish between themselves a European Payments Union (hereinafter referred to as the "Union") which shall be operated within the framework of the Organisation.

Article 2

PURPOSES OF THE UNION

The purposes of the Union shall be to facilitate, by means of a multilateral system of payments, the settlement of all transactions

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