In my own name, too, I thank you, first because I feel greatly honoured by your invitation, and secondly on more personal grounds. For it so happens that almost exactly twenty years ago, on 8 August 1949, I was present at the inaugural session of your Assembly, in a very modest capacity, but in circumstances I have never forgotten. Many illustrious persons were there whose names have gone down, or will go down, in history – Winston Churchill and Bevin for Great Britain, Mr. de Valera for Ireland, Sforza and President Saragat for Italy, and for France, among others, Edouard Herriot, Paul Reynaud, Robert Schuman. Nobody, to be sure, had a very clear idea of what the work and role of the new institution might be. Eloquence, not yet a lost art, flowed unrestrained, sincere and moving. Above all there was patently apparent on every side the utmost good will towards an enterprise born of a mighty impulse.

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