At the height of the Great Depression, the League of Nations addressed the economic restoration of Central and Eastern Europe at a special conference, which was mandated by the Lausanne Conference of 1932 with the aim to prepare proposals for the Commission of Enquiry for European Union to restore Central and Eastern Europe’s economy. This included measures to overcome transfer difficulties, revive trade, and address agricultural issues. The conference took place in Stresa from the 5th to 20th September 1932 under the chairmanship of Georges Bonnet, who would later become French Foreign Minister.
Representatives of the following countries were present at the conference: Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Roumania, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. The representative of Latvia attended as an observer, along with other representatives of the League’s Secretariat, the International Labour Office, and the International Institute of Agriculture.
The Stresa Conference noted a close connection between financial, monetary and economic problems and declared that European recovery remained impossible as long as trade hindrances were maintained. The report recommended that all European countries should gradually return to a system of free trade with some necessary adjustments. The recommendations included establishing a rational contractual policy and gradually removing foreign exchange restrictions. The conference also recommended increasing unduly restrictive quotas, adjusting them through bilateral agreements, and introducing greater elasticity in application methods for Central and Eastern European countries to minimize the effects of the quota system on their economic development.
In a statement on the work of the Stresa conference, Bonnet pointed out the main achievement of the conference:
“These agricultural countries which met at Stresa […] expressed vigorously – and, I must admit, unanimously – the wishes of the people of Central and Eastern Europe. Their cry of distress was heard by the Conference, which drew up a draft Convention for the revalorisation of cereals. This draft Convention is one of the most important parts of the work of the Conference and should be the first to be put into application. Its object may be expressed in a few words. It will enable the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to sell the whole of their cereals, and to sell abroad above the world price, thus revalorising internal prices.” (LoNA, Sign. 0000767623_D0006, no pagination.)
This should strengthen the internal economies of Central and Eastern European countries to withstand the economic depression and prepare for future recovery. Yet these recommendations were broadly out of line with protectionist and self-sufficient policies pursued by states across the globe. Not least, the London World Economic Conference of 1933 was convened to implement the recommendations made at Stresa. However, as historian Patricia Clavin notes, it collapsed “in undignified recrimination among the major powers’, marking ‘the end of attempts at international economic co-operation in the interwar period.”[1]
Sources:
Commission of Enquiry for European Union (League of Nations) (24.09.1932): Report by the Stresa Conference for the Economic Restoration of Central and Eastern Europe. League of Nations Archive (LoNA), Sign. 0000676828_D0011.
Commission of Enquiry for European Union (League of Nations) (15.10.1932): Minutes of the Sixth Session of the Commission (30.10.-01.11.1932). League of Nations Archive (LoNA), Sign. 0000767623_D0006.
[1] Clavin, Patricia. “Explaining the Failure of the London World Economic Conference”. The Interwar Depression in an International Context, edited by Harold James, München: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2002, pp. 77-98, here 77.