The first session of the Consultative Assembly, which later became the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was held 75 years ago, on Wednesday, August 10, 1949, in the aula of the University Palace, Place Brant, in Strasbourg.
The provisional president, French statesman Edouard Herriot, declared the session open. Henri Spaak, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, was then elected as the first president of the Assembly and concluded his opening speech with these words:
"My motto, gentlemen, is the following: To work, and may the old Europe be born, organized, and live thanks to us."
