Europeans
The Council of Europe has never had much glamour for this country. Whitehall remains polite, remote, and slightly con- descending; politicians tend to regard Strasbourg as a gift for epicures and for those who like to ride their political hobby- horses before an international public; Ministers largely ignore it except on the rare occasions when, they wake up to find that it is within reach of an infringement of British sovereignty. Yet its real potentiality, as a forum where Britain can become not merely acquainted with but the leader of European opinion, still exists, and could still, though with increasing difficulty, be used to advantage. But what, it may be asked, is the value of a resolution about the international situation, with no bind- ing commitment on governments, which is the main achieve- ment of the current session ? The answer is -that it is not the business of the Consultative Assembly to bind govern- ments. It is its business to form a climate of European opinion not only about what should be done but about what it may be possible to do in those matters which are of common concern to Western Europe. Thus, the resolution itself may be valueless, but the fact that the leader of the French Socialists should have voted, with a German Christian Demo- crat and a British Conservative, in favour of the integration of a rearmed Germany in Western Europe and for the freedom 'of an all-German government to choose its own alliances, is of great value. It produces the kind of atmosphere that made the Schuman Plan possible and may now enable it to work. And, if Britain were prepared to conduct a bit more of its diplomacy in Strasbourg and a bit less in Washington and Lake Success, it is capable of producing the kind of 'atmosphere in which the European Defence Community could be realised.
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