Le 23 mars 1957, le bimestriel italien Relazioni internazionali publie un article de Francesco M. Dominedò, membre italien de l'Assemblée commune de la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier (CECA) et député du Parti de la Démocratie chrétienne, qui souligne l'importance de l'énergie nucléaire pour l'Europe occidentale et en particulier pour l'Italie.

Le 17 octobre 1962, l'Assemblée parlementaire européenne adopte deux résolutions en faveur d'un renforcement de la coordination des politiques économiques. La première, adoptée sur la base du rapport de MM. Van Campen, préconise une coordination accrue des politiques monétaires et, à plus long terme, une politique monétaire commune. La seconde résolution s'appuie sur le rapport de M. Bousch et défend une harmonisation de la présentation des budgets nationaux et l'adoption d'un budget économique européen.

On 3 October 1962, Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, French Ambassador to the United Kingdom, sends a letter to French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville in which he refers to the joint meeting between the Council of Western European Union (WEU) and the WEU Assembly’s Committee on Defence Questions, held on 28 September 1962. Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel particularly comments on the lengthy debates over controls on production and the setting of levels of stocks of nuclear weapons in France. Given the increasing reluctance of other WEU Member States, he proposes the immediate adoption of another line of argument to justify France’s deferment of the application of Article III of the Treaty of Brussels, with an emphasis on the fact that this article is discriminatory towards France.

On 21 November 1956, French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau writes to Jean Chauvel, French Ambassador to London, to give his views on the position that should be adopted concerning Recommendation 6 of the Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) on WEU activities in the field of defence. The question that is raised is whether WEU maintains its role in the area of common defence or whether its powers have been transferred to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Christian Pineau believes that WEU’s powers in this field are restricted by the obligations entered into by its members as signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty. Since European defence is inseparable from the defence of the Atlantic Community, close cooperation is required. On the matter of communication between the WEU Council and the Assembly, the Foreign Minister notes that the military aspects of common defence do not come under the Council’s remit. The Council cannot communicate to the Assembly information that it does not own, which the member governments are only aware of because they belong to NATO. However, Christian Pineau does propose that the WEU member governments’ permanent representatives to NATO should be able to communicate information of a general nature to the Assembly.

On 30 October 1978 in Paris, the Liaison Sub-Committee on the Joint Production of Armaments holds a meeting with members of the Standing Armaments Committee (SAC) and the Assembly of Western European Union (WEU). The discussions focus on the SAC’s activities and the future equipment programme of the Member States. Lord Roper, chairman of the meeting and a British Member of Parliament, questions General Cauchie, chairman of the meeting for the SAC, on whether the differences in legal structure in Western Europe can be considered as a cause of obstruction or delay in cooperation between Member States, or whether such obstruction is caused by a lack of political will. In General Cauchie’s view, the SAC can only work within the terms of reference given to it by the Council. With the exception of atomic, biological and chemical weapons, the limits of the WEU agreements do not hinder any collaborative projects.

Photograph taken at the ceremony held in Strasbourg on 25 September 2002 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first session of the ECSC Common Assembly on 10 September 1952. From left to right: Sir Henry Plumb, former EP President, Pat Cox, current EP President, Pieter Dankert, former EP President, Klaus Hänsch, former EP President, Emilio Colombo, former EP President, and Egon Klepsch, former EP President.

On 17 February 1955, William Allan Cunningham Mathieson, a British diplomat in the Colonial Office, sends a letter to Léon Pignon, Political Affairs Director in the Ministry for Overseas France, in which he outlines the concerns in the Colonial Office over Recommendation 61 of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe on the so-called “Strasbourg Plan” for the integration of colonial development with European economic unity. British objections concern both economic reasons and also the political impact of the Strasbourg Plan. Recommendation 61 concerning the Special Report of the OEEC on the Strasbourg Plan sets out the principle that ‘the policy of European integration entails, as a corollary, cooperation in the interests of their common prosperity, between metropolitan powers, the overseas countries which have constitutional links with them and the other member countries of the Council of Europe’.

On 2 July 1965, Jean-Marc Boegner, Permanent Representative of France to the European Communities, sends a letter to the French Foreign Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville, in which he gives an account of the breakdown of the Council’s discussions during the night of 30 June, which led to the empty chair crisis. The talks focused, in particular, on the financing of the common agricultural policy (CAP) and on the role of the European Parliamentary Assembly.