El cumplimiento de la ley, el estatuto y los acuerdos de la junta general y del directorio.

On 12 September 1952, the Assembly approved its own provisional Rules of Procedure on the basis of a Draft presented by the Provisional Committee on the Rules of Procedure11_{. The Assembly proceeded} to vote on the individual articles and to a final vote without debate12_{. Some points were adjourned until} a subsequent session and were the subject of a report13 _{which, with few amendments, was approved, yet} again without anything which could really be called a discussion (but merely some exchanges of opinion on specific points) on 10 January 1953.

On the same day, the motion from the Organisation Committee concerning the number, composition and

remit of the committees14 _{was likewise approved. In it, a draft from the Assembly’s General Secretariat} which is not available in the archives of the European Parliament is cited; it provided for three general committees, for economic affairs, social affairs and external relations respectively, each of 26 members, with the possibility of appointing special committees (we would say sub-committees) of nine members in addition to the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Accounts, which would operate outside this framework. Finally, a stance adopted by the President of the High Authority and by other members of

8 _{CA Resolution of 10 January 1953 relating au nombre, à la composition et aux attributions des Commissions nécessaires à la bonne}

marche des travaux de l’Assemblée in OJEC of 10.2.53, p .8.

9 _{REGl 10}

10 _{This seems not to be held in the European Parliament archives.}

11 _{The committee’s report is not available in the European Parliament archives, although among them there is the following document:}

ECSC Common Assembly Projet de Règlement provisoire, September 1952, held in the four official languages of the time in the CARDOC ‘Rules of Procedure’ collection. The document makes no explicit mention of the Provisional Committee on Rules of Procedure or of the Rapporteur, Mr Struye (who is indicated as such only in the plenary session report). In the reasons for the draft, the proposing body is generically indicated as ‘committee’ and from a declaration by Mutter of 10 January 1953 (CA Débats – séance du samedi 10 janvier 1953, p. 25) we learn that it was composed of the general secretaries of the national parliaments. The Provisional Committee, on the basis of Mr Struye’s declaration, adopted as a basis the draft rules of procedure which you know. It set aside questions which were not urgent and earmarked their examination for a later date (CA Débats – séance du vendredi 12 septembre 1952, p. 25).

12 _{CA Débats -séance du vendredi 12 septembre 1952, p. 25-74; these pages collectively cover other issues, however, relating to the}

operation of the Common Assembly.

13 _{REGl 2, which relates to the term of the mandate (which was coordinated with the national one), the procedure for the examination}

of the General Report of the High Authority, that for the amendment of the Treaty which envisages a right of initiative on the part of the Assembly in the matter, the rules and regulations applying to the committees (excluding their definition) and petitions, and also the immunities of the Representatives and staff.

the executive who sought close relations between the executive and the Assembly advised the committee to propose a structure based on seven committees, and this, with a slight amendment to the name of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, to which was added the remit concerning petitions and immunities, was finally approved by the Assembly.

A major integration of the rules of procedure was the article on the constitution of the groups: the report15 was approved by the Committee on 15 June 1953 and by the Assembly on the following day16_{. Article} 33a, which was thus introduced, laid down that the groups should constitute themselves by political affinities on the basis of a declaration indicating its name and members and the Chairmanship Office. The minimum number of members was nine, with no provision made for origin from different States.

Within the Committee17_{, the sole question discussed was whether, as happened in certain parliaments,} each group had to make a political declaration, a solution which was ruled out. The minimum number was laid down as nine in order to allow each group to have a representative in each committee.

The subsequent activity of the Committee related, in connection with the rules of procedure, to their maintenance, i.e. adaptation to experience and to the problems encountered in parliamentary activity. It was therefore laid down that amendments should be tabled only in writing18 _{so as to obviate the} difficulties of oral ones, particularly in a multilingual Assembly, while Article 46, concerning a formal aspect of the sending of the annual report to the Council of Europe, was brought into line with the Treaty, thereby removing an inconsistency19_.

The question of the presence in the Assembly committees of members of the Special Council of Ministers, to which a report20 _{was devoted, was more awkward. The Committee reasserted the parliamentary principle} that committees were sovereign when it came to the admission of outsiders to their own meetings, yet emphasised how extremely unlikely it was for a committee to refuse to hear a member of the Special Council requesting to be heard. The Committee accordingly proposed that the members of the High Authority and of the Council should be able to participate in the meetings of the committees which, by a specific decision, invited them. The Assembly accepted this position without any debate21_{. It might be} worth drawing attention to a significant difference in approach to the activity of the committees between the 1950s and the present: at that time, it was regarded as necessary for guaranteeing the freedom of discussions within committees that they should meet away from any publicity22_.

linked to the foregoing, one report23 proposed a review of a number of critical points of the Rules of Procedure. Of these points, some were of political importance, especially the one relating to the term of the mandate of the representatives, who were in those days elected by the national parliaments. While the problem of the beginning of the mandate was resolved by guaranteeing to every new member the exercise of powers temporarily until they were verified, that of the end – the exercise of powers between the loss of the national mandate and the appointment of the next representative – posed greater 15 _{REGl 3.}

16 _{AC Débats -séance du mardi 16 septembre 1953, p. 46.} 17 _{Meetings of 11 March, 8 and 15 June 1953.}

18 _{REGl 4.} 19 _{REGl 5.}

20 _{REGl 6. This report closed a decidedly awkward question which was the subject of copious correspondence between the Council and}

the Assembly from February 1953 onwards. See in this connection CA memorandum – Rules of Procedure, Petitions and Immunities Committee Documents rélatifs à la présence des membres du Conseil spécial des Ministres aux réunions des commissions, held in AC AP RP/REGl.1953 AC-0011/53-mai 0020 and the accompanying letters and the telegram reported in the minutes of the meeting of 9 April 1954.

21 _{CA Débats – séance du mercredi 12 mai 1954, p. 34.} 22 _{REGl 6, p. 6.}

difficulties. The Committee gave up on finding a regulatory solution and requested the Bureau to urge national parliaments to appoint someone promptly.

In the same report another politically important question, which the observer of today finds odd, related to the position of the members of the Assembly who at the same time occupied a government post. The Committee did not deem it desirable for members of a government to serve on the Assembly, but the latter was not competent to declare it incompatible. The Committee therefore limited itself to regarding government duties as incompatible with the office of Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the committees and President and Vice-President of the Assembly.

Finally, attention is drawn, in connection with the Rules of Procedure, to the report24 _{whereby the} Committee, at the request of the President of the Assembly, proposed an amendment to Article 6 to allow, even outside a session, the substitution of the Chairman or of a Vice-Chairman who had resigned from the Assembly. The proposed amendment provided for the appointment, on an interim basis, of a member of the Bureau designated by the Committee of Presidents, by the group to which the Chairman or Vice-Chairman to be replaced belonged. Until the election of the new member by the Assembly, the temporary replacement performed only the duties of Bureau member and, if he were to replace a Chairman, the duties of the latter were performed by the First Vice-Chairman. This amendment, which was probably prompted by experience following the death of President De Gasperi in August 1954, was approved without amendment by the Assembly25_.