Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration

The Council of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) held its fifth session in Geneva, October I–10, 1956; prior to the session the nine-nation Executive Committee held a private session beginning on September 20. After adopting the Director's progress report, a final 1956 movement program of 126,160 Europeans, and a budget of $44.5 million, the Council approved the 1957 plan for resettlement of 122,000 European migrants at a cost of nearly $44 million. Delegates from ten nations pledged contributions amounting to $680,680 for a special fund of nearly $1 million established by the Council for assistance to refugees and migration services. The ICEM Director, Harold H. Tittmann, reported the decline in 1956 of movements to Latin America, and suggested the possibility of increased migration to Colombia, which had accepted relatively few European migrants. A United States delegate (Walter) announced that the United States was prepared to allocate part of its $15 million Latin American Development Fund to promote land settlement programs in Latin America. He stated that the United States could not originate such programs, but required a Latin American nation to make land available for resettlement of migrants and a migrant-sending European nation to contribute its share of financial and economic assistance. In accordance with the United States offer the Argentine delegate said his government would set aside 70 plots of land to assist immigrants in the Melchior Romero colony near Buenos Aires. In addition, 23,000 hectares of land owned by the Banco de la Naoion and located in various parts of the country would be earmarked for other projects.