Comité des Ministres des Affaires Étrangères

As a result of the efforts of Polish informal diplomat Joseph Retinger – who worked closely with Polish Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski – a machinery for consultation between the exiled European governments was created over the summer and fall of 1942. From the beginning of their exile, the Polish government had reflected a desire to…

Intra-European Payments Committee (OEEC)

On 21 June 1948, the Intra-European Payments Committee gathered for the first time. Many of its members had already been active in the Committee of Financial Experts that had worked in the Committee on European Economic Cooperation (CEEC) over the summer of 1947, and had come up with the first intra-European payments mechanism: the Agreement…

Executive Committee (OEEC)

The Council of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation could rely on the assistance of an Executive Committee (EC). The Executive Committee was much smaller than the Council and consisted of only seven members – which would be picked annually by the Council. Generally, the Executive Committee made recommendations to the Council or initiated working…

Council (OEEC)

The highest authority in the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was the Council. All of the participating countries had a representative in the Council. Officially these representatives were the ministers of the participating countries, but mostly they were represented by high-ranked civil servants with economic expertise. On some occasions, mostly at the initiative of…

Joint Trade and Payments Committee (OEEC)

The Joint Trade and Intra-European Payments Committee was a technical ‘horizontal’ committee within the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). It was created in May 1948, and dealt with the interrelated problems of trade and payments within the OEEC. The two goals that were encapsulated in the founding documents of the OEEC, the liberalization of…

Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA)

Set-up as a businesslike organization headed by former car salesman Paul G. Hoffman, the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the European Recovery Program (ERP). It was created following the singing of the Economic Cooperation Act in April 1948. Besides a headquarter in Washington, the ECA had a field office…

Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA)

American ecumenists pushed soon after the end of the Second World War for the creation of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA). This idea was accepted at a meeting of the Provisional Council of the World Council of Churches in February 1946 and in August 1946 it was founded during the International…

Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe

The Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, now known as Parliamentary Assembly, was one of the two main organs of the Council of Europe. The Consultative Assembly met for the first time on the 10th of August 1949 and consisted of parliamentarians from the various member states. The Council of Europe was founded in…

The President’s Committee on Foreign Aid

The President’s Committee of Foreign Aid (1947-1948) was a committee within the United States Department of Commerce tasked with determining the limits within which the United States of America could safely and wisely extend economic aid to Western Europe. It was created after Secretary of State George C. Marshall had taken the initiative to offer…