At Work for Europe

When, on 16th April 1948, they signed the Conven tion setting up the O.E.E.C., the Member coun tries of the Organisation formally recognised that their economies were interdependent and that the prosperity of each depended on the prosperity of the others. They undertook to make close co-operation the keynote of their mutual economic relations and, in particular, to join together to make the fullest collective use of their individual capacities and potentialities, to increase their production, develop and modernise their industrial and agricultural equipment, expand their commerce, reduce progressively barriers to trade among themselves, promote full employment and restore or maintain the stability of their economies and general confidence in their national currencies". Finally, they agreed to work towards world freedom of trade and complete convertibility.

The essential function of the O.E.E.C. is to provide the machinery for putting this far-reaching programme into effect. The Organisation has, in fact, radically transformed the life of the seventeen West European states of which it is made up. Any economic problems which seem likely to be solved more easily by combined action are studied jointly, and the most confidential information is exchanged. When it is remembered how cautious the European governments were before the war in supplying one another with the eco nomic information at their disposal, the full extent of the progress that has been made can be appreciated.