Treaty of Prague

The Treaty of Prague is the treaty by which eleven European states founded the European Federation, signed in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle on 19 September 1942, during the First Euro-American War. It was negotiated in 26 days by governments that had withdrawn to Prague after American forces took their capitals, and its founders called it the treaty of necessity. It created the Federal Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the European Defence Force and a federal directorate for war production. The anniversary of its signing, Founding Day, has been a public holiday in the Federation since 1943.

Background

The United States invaded western Europe from Spain in April 1942. Paris fell on 26 June, Brussels on 22 July, Luxembourg on 30 July, and The Hague and Amsterdam on 4 August. The governments of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had lost their capitals, the staff of the European Coal and Steel Union had left Brussels, and the European armies had no common command. Berlin was the largest capital still free, and France and Poland would not accept a federation founded there; Rome was far to the south. On 9 August 1942 the President of Czechoslovakia, Karel Hrubý, invited the European governments to Prague, a capital in the centre of the continent, ringed by mountains and close to the Škoda armament works.

Conference

The Prague Conference opened in the Spanish Hall of Prague Castle on 24 August 1942. Eleven governments attended, with the Common Authority of the Coal and Steel Union, and with observers from Britain and Canada. The French premier, Henri Delacourt, chaired the drafting committee, and most of the text was written by lawyers who had served the Coal and Steel Union. The treaty was signed at 11:00 on Saturday 19 September 1942.

Provisions

The treaty established:

• the Federal Council, with one member for each state, whose President is the head of state; its first President was Karel Hrubý (1942–1949);
• the Council of Ministers, responsible for war, supply, finance, foreign affairs, transport and production, with Delacourt as its first President (1942–1946);
• the European Parliament, at first an assembly of delegates of the national parliaments, which first sat in the Rudolfinum, the seat of the Czechoslovak parliament, on 1 October 1942;
• the European Defence Force, a single command over the national forces, whose first commander-in-chief was the Polish general Stefan Konarski;
• the Federal War Production Directorate, formed by merging and widening the Common Authority of the Coal and Steel Union, under Konrad Ehlers;
• fixed exchange rates between the members' currencies for the duration of the war.

The member states kept their own governments, parliaments and armed forces, under the federal command in wartime. Article 1 constituted the Federation "for the duration of hostilities with the United States of America and until the conclusion of a peace".

Accessions

Britain, which had taken part as an observer, did not sign in 1942. Its House of Commons voted to join on 2 March 1943, during the Hunger Winter, and the British prime minister signed the treaty of accession in the Spanish Hall on 3 March. Romania joined in May 1943, and Hungary and Iceland in 1944. By 2019 the Federation had twenty-three member states.

Legacy

Prague was the Federation's capital until the end of the war, and its institutions moved to Amsterdam between 1947 and 1949.

After the Cessation, parties in France and Britain argued that the end of hostilities had ended the Federation under Article 1, and that its powers should return to the member states. In March 1950 the Federal Court of Justice held that a cessation of hostilities is not a peace, and that the treaty remained in force. The Federal Charter, signed in Amsterdam in 1964 and in force from 1 January 1966, replaced the treaty's wartime terms and constituted the Federation without a time limit; Britain ratified it by referendum in 1965, with 52% of the vote. The Mattawa Declaration of 1975, which ended the state of war with the United States, therefore had no effect on the Federation's existence. Founding Day, 19 September, is marked with a ceremony at Prague Castle. The first landing of the Federation's Somnium programme on the Moon was made on Founding Day 1973.

See also

• European Federation
• First Euro-American War
• Prague
• European Coal and Steel Union