CMEA

From Hobson's Choice

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (also known as Comecon); an association of Communist states allied to the USSR. The CMEA included Warsaw Pact member states, plus several other nations such as Vietnam, which were Asian and Communist.

In December 1959, CMEA members signed an agreement for currency exchange, making member's currencies convertible within the trade bloc.^[1]

The CMEA's Central European membership withdrew in January 1990, a few weeks after the collapse of Communism in the USSR's Warsaw pact allies.^[2] The Council was finally dissolved in June, 1991, as the USSR broke up.^[3]

Contents 1 Membership 2 Structure 3 Notes 4 External Links

Membership

Charter Members (Jan 1949)

• USSR (to Jan 1990)
• Bulgaria (to Jan 1990)
• Czechoslovakia (to Jan 1990)
• Hungary (to Jan 1990)
• Poland (to Jan 1990)
• Romania (to Jan 1990)

Feb 1949

• Albania (to 1961)

1950

• German Democratic Republic (to Jan 1990)

June 1962

• Mongolia^[4] (to Jun 1991)

September 1963

• Yugoslavia^[5]

1972

• Cuba (to Jun 1991)

1978

• Socialist Republic of Vietnam (to Jun 1991)

Observers Observers were allowed to attend annual meetings

• Afghanistan (1986)
• Ethiopia (1986)
• Laos (1986)
• Nicaragua (1986)
• South Yemen (1986)

Structure

Surprisingly little information is circulated about Comecon, and it seems that the USSR tended to conduct trade policy in a more bilateral fashion. This may have been because of the high degree of instability of "extra-regional" Communist states, and the importance of Moscow's political critique over authentic multilateral cooperation. Another reason was that Comecon had a exchangeable currency regime that required fiduciary stability. Hence, nations occasionally put in an appearance at Comecon meetings to express political solidarity with the USSR, but the Comecon remained essentially a "greater USSR."

Political organs of the Council included

• the General Conference
• the Industrial Development Board
• the Secretariat.

The General Conference included all members, including the one "associate member" (Yugoslavia) and observers; meetings were held every two years. The purpose of the General Conference was to decide the "guiding principles" of the organization,^[6] and to elect officers of the other two organs.

The Industrial Development Board had 53 members, half of whom were elected by the Conference every two years; terms on the board were four years. The Board met every year to agree on a budget (which meant allocations of budget moneys to individual programs), review implementation of the "approved program of work."

The Secretariat was the actual executor of the "approved program of work" (In multilateral organizations like the CMEA, the United Nations, and the Commonwealth, the secretariat is the executive branch; it is charged with actually performing the mission of the organization, while the other parts are for accountability). The CMEA secretariat was charged with not receiving instruction from any member government, both inside the CMEA or outside of it.

Notes

1. ↑ M.S. Handlers, "Red States sign a Currency Pact" New York Times (15 Dec 1959)
2. ↑ Craig R. Whitney, "East Europe Joins the Market And Gets a Preview of the Pain," New York Times (7 Jan 1990).
3. ↑ Steven Greenhouse, "Soviet Trade Bloc Is Out of Business," New York Times (29 June 1991).
4. ↑ Seymour Topping, "Red Bloc Speeds Economic Unity," New York Times (3 June 1962).
5. ↑ David Binder, "Yugoslavia to Get Status of Observer In Red Trode Bloc," New York Times (3 Sep 1963).
6. ↑ Paul Joan George Kapteyn (editor), International Organization and Integration, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (1997): "Charter, CMEA" (1960), p.21ff. All of the other functions listed are vague recapitulations of this.

External Links

• "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance," A Country Study, Glenn E. Curtis, ed. (Washington, D. C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1992).