Fernand Dehousse, President of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1956 to 1959.

In 1952, writing in the French magazine Notre Europe, Fernand Dehousse, a Belgian Socialist Senator and militant pro-European, sets out the stance taken by Belgium on the Schuman Plan.

On 19 March 1951, Louis Pierson writes to Fernand Dehousse, a Belgian Socialist Senator and a very active pro-European militant, to protest against the attitude in the Belgian coal industry and the Government towards the Schuman Plan.

On 11 October 1972, in Brussels, the Belgian politician, Fernand Dehousse, former President of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, delivers a lecture to the Belgian Royal Institute for International Relations (IRRI) on the implications of the Paris Summit, to he held on 19, 20 and 21 October.

On 22 October 1958, a working party on the European elections is set up within the Political Affairs Committee of the European Parliamentary Assembly. On 30 April 1960, it publishes the ‘Dehousse report’ on the election of the Members of the Assembly by direct universal suffrage, to be adopted on 17 May 1960.

At the European Movement’s second Congress, held in The Hague from 8 to 10 October 1953, Fernand Dehousse, a Belgian Socialist and active member of the Constitutional Committee of the Ad Hoc Assembly responsible for drafting plans for a European Political Community (EPC), presents a detailed report on the nature and operation of the institutions of such a Community.

Jean Monnet, chargé en tant que Président de la Haute Autorité de la CECA de convoquer la première session de l'Assemblée commune, adresse le 5 septembre 1952 une lettre circulaire aux délégués de l'assemblée. Il leur annonce les décisions prises pour assurer le bon fonctionnement de cette première session, dont l'organisation du Secrétariat provisoire, de même que l'ordre du jour prévu par le Traité: l'élection du Président et du Bureau et l'élaboration du Règlement intérieur.

Leo Tindemans was Belgian Prime Minister from 1974 to 1978. In January 1977, he gives a first evaluation of the European Council.

In April 1953, Fernand Dehousse, Belgian representative to the Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community and to the ad hoc Assembly, comments in the monthly magazine Europe Unie on the work of the Constitutional Commission and the ad hoc Assembly.

Georges Spénale, President of the European Parliament from 1975 to 1977, outlines the evolution of this institution from its first meeting in 1952 until 1977.