U.S. HINT FOR BRITAIN TO MOVE FOR EUROPEAN UNION

Grey River Argus, 30 August 1948, Page 3

U.S. HINT FOR BRITAIN TO MOVE FOR EUROPEAN UNION

WASHINGTON, August 27. The State Departnient announces that the United States strongly favoured the creation of a European Representative Assembly comprising all the Western European Marshall Plan nations. The spokesman said the United States warmly welcomed the French proposal that the signatory countries of the Western Union Paet should meet late in November to decide op membership, the date and place, of meeting, and the agenda of a European Representative Assembly. ' “The United States strongly favours the progressively closer integration of the free nations of Western Europe. We favour the taking by Europeans themselves of any steps which will promote the idea of European unity or promote the study of practical measures and the taking of such measures. We believe that the world of to-day requires the taking of steps which, ■ before the war, would have seemed beyond the range of practical politics”. The spokesman’s phrase “steps which before the war would seem beyond the range of practical politics ’ 'is interpreted in Washington as a rebuke to Britain’s apparent caution.