Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1949 - 1951 (Creation)
Level of description
Series
Extent and medium
2 PDF
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
The FEC chronological series contains the records of the Defence Financial and Economic Committee.During its first session on 17th September 1949 the Council Deputies recognized in directive D-1/3 the importance of economic and financial factors in the development and implementation of military plans for the defence of the North Atlantic Area. Consequently the Council Deputies agreed that a working group should be created which would submit recommendations to the Council on the appropriate machinery to deal with these matters.The Defence Financial and Economic Committee (DFEC) was established on 18th November 1949 during the second session of Council Deputies. The directive D-1/4 to the Defence Financial and Economic Committee set up the composition of the Committee consisting in one member at ministerial level (Finance Ministers) for every signatory country and stipulated that the new body would report directly to the Council. The United States Representative Averell Harriman was elected the first chairman. The FEC met for the first time in Paris on 19th December 1949.The DFEC was created to develop financial and economic guides for collective defence programmes in co-operation with the Military Committee (including the Standing Group) and the Military Production and Supply Board. It was in charge of considering the financial and economic impact (availability of raw materials, capital equipment and manpower), recommending arrangements for interchange of military equipment, measuring the foreign exchange costs and considering plans for the mobilisation of economic and financial resources in times of emergency.The Committee worked on four projects: collecting data on current defence expenditures by country, studying the availability of financial and economic resources for military production, examining financial arrangements for military material transfers and developing formulae and criteria for measuring economic burden of defence.The DFEC disappeared as a result of the modification of NATO‘s structure by a decision of the Council Deputies on 3rd May 1951 (see D-D(51)86 Final). The functions and responsibilities were transferred to the Financial and Economic Board (FEB). The DFEC’s work provided Deputies with statistical information on budgetary resources (data collection for defence expenditures) and with an uncompleted study on the removal of custom barriers for the exchange of war material (see FEB-R(51)1-PART 2).
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The Defence Financial and Economic Committee series consist of just one record: a verbatim record of the second meeting held in London on 29th March 1950. The verbatim record contains the discussion around the four high priority work projects undertaken by DFEC.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
The chronological document series created by Defence Financial and Economic Committee is arranged by type - Meeting (M) and then by number.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
NATO publicly disclosed information is available for research and education purposes. Any commercial use requires the written permission of NATO. Please credit the NATO Archives should any documents be used for publication. Guidelines for the proper citation of NATO publicly disclosed information can be found on the NATO Archives website (http://www.nato.int/archives).
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
All records were circulated in NATO’s two official languages, English and French.