840.70/12–644: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 6—4:46 p.m.]
10778. From EITO Delegation. A third informal meeting was held with the Continental Delegations on Monday, December 4, at which the remaining articles of the revised draft agreement were discussed. The only question of substance raised relates to waterways. The Netherlands Delegation has submitted a proposal for a pool of inland waterway craft available for traffic of common concern on European waterways, modeled on the UMA agreement.16 They have drafted an agreement on principles and have stated in the inland waterways subcommittee that their signature of the EITO agreement will be contingent on the acceptance of these principles by a certain [Page 900] number of governments. (Draft agreement on principles was enclosed in despatch No. 19656.17) They have indicated they would be satisfied if a general statement were included in Article VIII of the draft agreement and the detailed principles were incorporated in an optional protocol attached to the draft agreement. The suggested general statement is along the following lines: “The members of the organization declare that they accept as a common responsibility the provision of inland craft required by the organization for the movement of traffic of common concern.” The final draft would make it clear that only the governments signatory to the optional protocol would be affected. The text of the waterway provision in section 12 of Article VII is also still under consideration. The latter provision, together with the Netherlands proposal for a pool, is being considered by the waterways subcommittee composed of representatives of the countries concerned. The subcommittee is meeting again on Thursday, December 7, and it is hoped will be able to report agreed texts immediately after that.
Aside from this question of waterways, the draft agreement has been turned over to a drafting committee, which it is hoped will have the whole agreement in shape for final consideration by the end of the week.
The Soviets have given no indication of their reaction to the articles embodying our efforts to meet them on technical points, although they have had them since November 25 and have subsequently been invited by Noel-Baker to discuss them. [EITO Delegation.]
- Agreement on Continuance of Coordinated Control of Merchant Shipping, signed August 5, 1944; for text, see Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 1722, or 61 Stat, (pt 4) 3784.↩
- The draft agreement transmitted in despatch 19656, December 4, is missing from Department files.↩