On 10 October 2001, on the occasion of his election as the final President of the ECSC Consultative Committee, Enrico Gibellieri summarises the activities of the Committee over the past 50 years and announces that it will be his task to ensure that they can continue with other instruments in a new context, after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty in July 2002.
At the fourth session of the Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty Powers, held on 27 and 28 January 1949, the Foreign Ministers of the five Powers agree on the establishment of a Council of Europe consisting of a ‘ministerial committee’ and of a ‘consultative body’.
On 26 January 1973, in the Hôtel de ville, Luxembourg, the ECSC Consultative Committee commemorates the 20th anniversary of its first session. On this occasion, Karl Heinz Hawner, President of the Consultative Committee from 1972 to 1973, gives an account of the work already completed by the Committee and outlines the work still to be carried out.
In 1958, the flag of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) had six gold stars on a half-black, half-blue background (symbolically representing coal and steel). The number of stars was increased in accordance with the successive ECSC enlargements before being set at 12 after the 1986 enlargement. The colour of the stars changed from gold to silver. This document, dating from 1978, reproduces the ECSC flag with nine silver stars, representing the nine Member States at the time.
On 26 October 1948, the Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty Powers decides to set up a ‘Committee for the Study of European Unity’, which will have its seat in Paris, to be responsible for reconciling the suggestions put forward by the French and Belgians, on the one hand, and by the British, on the other, with a view to establishing a closer union between the countries of Europe.
In a welcoming address to Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic, given in Rome on 16 July 2002, a few days before the expiry of the ECSC Treaty, Enrico Gibellieri, President of the Consultative Committee, refers to the heritage left by the 50 years of the ECSC Treaty, with particular regard to the development of European industry, the management of social crises and research and innovation.
In this note, Enrico Gibellieri, who served as the last President of the Consultative Committee of the ECSC from 10 October 2001 to 23 July 2002, reviews the advances made in the fields of social policy over 50 years in Europe as a result of the instruments provided by the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), particularly the instruments for sectoral dialogue and those for the improvement of living and working conditions.
Communiqué published at the end of the third session of the Consultative Council of the Brussels Treaty Powers, held in Paris on 25 and 26 October 1948, at which a decision was taken to set up a committee to be responsible for reviewing the measures to be taken in order to achieve European unity.
At the ceremony held in Luxembourg on 26 January 1973 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first session of the ECSC Consultative Committee, the Committee’s first President, Helmuth Burckhardt, recalls the first years of the Committee.
On 1 April 1993, at the Cercle municipal in Luxembourg, the ECSC Consultative Committee commemorates the 40th anniversary of its first session, held on 26 January 1953 at Luxembourg town hall. Jacques Santer, Luxembourg Prime Minister from 1984 to 1995, delivers a speech during the ceremony.