Council of Europe – Europe Integration Fiasco

On May 5, 1949 an international government organisation Council of Europe seated in Strasbourg was established.

Faced with great destruction and consequences of World War Two, Europeans were searching for a way to unite Europe. Several European statesmen, Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Alcide de Gaspri and Robert Schuman, decided to convince their nations to start a new era. 

In 950 Jean Monnet drafted a memorandum which stipulated that there would be no peace if European countries are reconstructed on the basis of national sovereignty, this being the source of the conflict, and are too small to guarantee their people prosperity and social development.

On May 5, 1949 in London, ten European countries founded the Council of Europe with the aim of promoting European unity and protecting human rights. The organisation’s greatest omission was that it did not have executive powers in certain member countries. It soon became evident that the Council of Europe had not fulfilled the task for which it had been established, which is to promote and contribute to Europe’s unification.

The area in which the Council of Europe did have a significant contribution was the protection of human rights. The European Convention on the protection of human rights and basic freedoms was passed. The Council of Europe developed an entire system of protecting and promoting human rights in member countries.

The European human rights court was established in Strasbourg. Applying the convention, the court makes decisions on the violation of the rights of individuals in member countries by a public government body. Citizens can submit their complaints to the court after they exhaust all judicial instances in their countries. The court’s decision is final and is not subject to appeal. The country that violated the rights of one of its citizens must abide by the court’s decision and the same case cannot be tried twice. Today the Council of Europe numbers 46 members.

The real success in integrating of the European continent was reached in 1951 with the establishment of the European coal and steel community. From the starting idea of cooperation of six members on the economic level on coal and steel raw materials, the European Union now takes care of both economic and political cooperation between 27 member countries.