Britain's wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill was the first to propose the creation of “a Council of Europe”, while the second world war was still running. In his own words, he tried to "peer through the mists of the future to the end of the war", once victory had been achieved, and think about how to rebuild and maintain peace on a shattered continent. Given that Europe had been at the root of two world wars, the creation of such a body would be, it completely made sense. 

 

Three months later, on 10 August 1949, 100 members of the Council's Consultative Assembly, parliamentarians were drawn from twelve nations (Turkey and Greece had by then joined the original ten founding members), met in Strasbourg for its first plenary session. They debated how to reconcile and reconstruct a continent still reeling from war, yet already facing a new East-West divide, launched the concept of a trans-national court to protect the basic human rights of every European citizen, and took the first steps towards what would in time become the European Union.