The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.
The Hague Congress or the Congress of Europe, considered by many as the first federal moment in European history, was held in The Hague from 711 May 1948 with 750 delegates participating from around Europe as well as observers from Canada and the United States of America.
The Congress, organized by Jzef Retinger, brought together representatives from across a broad political spectrum, providing them with the opportunity to discuss ideas about the development of European political co-operation. Important political figures such as Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, Franois Mitterrand (both ministers in Robert Schuman's government), three former French prime ministers, Paul Reynaud, douard Daladier, Paul Ramadier, Paul van Zeeland, Albert Copp and Altiero Spinelli took part.
A broad range of philosophers, journalists, church leaders, lawyers, professors, entrepreneurs and historians also took an active role in the congress. A call was launched for a political, economic and monetary Union of Europe. This landmark conference was to have a profound influence on the shape of the European Movement, which was created soon afterwards.
The Spanish statesman Salvador de Madariaga proposed the establishment of a College of Europe at the Congress. This would be a college where university graduates from many different countries, some only a short while before at war with each other, could study and live together.
The Congress also discussed the future structure and role of the Council of Europe. Teitgen and Maxwell-Fyfe were instrumental in creating the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms at the Council of Europe.
The Congress provided the means to heighten public opinion for European unity. On 20 July 1948, at the Hague meeting of ministers of Western European Union, Schuman's Foreign Minister Georges Bidault proposed the creation of a European Assembly (realized in the later Council of Europe) and a customs and economic union (the later European Coal and Steel Community and the two communities of the Treaties of Rome). Thus the conclusions of the Congress became French government policy and then the subject of European governmental policy.
The Council of Europe (CoE; French: Conseil de l'Europe, CdE) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 46 member states, with a population of approximately 675 million, and operates with an annual budget of approximately 500 million euros.The organisation is distinct from the European Union (EU), although it is sometimes confused with it, partly because the EU has adopted the original European flag, created for the Council of Europe in 1955, as well as the European anthem. The Council of Europe is an official United Nations Observer.Being an international organization, the Council of Europe cannot make laws, but it does have the ability to push for the enforcement of select international agreements reached by member states on various topics. The best known body of the Council of Europe is the European Court of Human Rights, which functions on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The council's two statutory bodies are the Committee of Ministers, comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, and the Parliamentary Assembly, composed of members of the national parliaments of each member state. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states. The Secretary General presides over the secretariat of the organisation. Other major CoE bodies include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and the European Audiovisual Observatory.
The headquarters of the Council of Europe, as well as its Court of Human Rights, are situated in Strasbourg, France. English and French are its two official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, and the Congress of the Council of Europe also use German and Italian for some of their work.