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The sixteenth regular session of the Danube Commission was held in Budapest in January 1957. It was reported that a series of organizational and financial problems was deliberated, an assessment of the practical work accomplished given, and the fundamental tasks of the Commission in the forthcoming period determined. Reportedly, the Danube Commission had covered and resolved almost all the basic problems concerning the establishment of the regulations for ensuring free navigation of the Danube; however, uniform regulations regarding civil law relations in navigation still had not been established. In setting its future tasks, the sixteenth session took into account, inter alia, the interconnection of the Danube basin with the other European water ways (the Rhine, the Oder, the Vistula, and the east German canals) and the complex utilization of the Danube as a source of hydroelectric power. It was reported that active cooperation had been established with the Economic Commission for Europe and the International Navigation Congress of Brussels. The importance of taking the entire Danube into account was noted in deliberating the tasks of the Commission relating to navigation and to the increased economic exploitation of the Danube. In this connection it was reported that beginning from the fifteenth regular session of the Commission, the Austrian and west German experts were participating in the Commission's activities.

The notes of protest which the United States, the United Kingdom, and France sent to the Danube Commission governments on November 15, 1949, were answered by the Soviet Union on March 9, 1950, and by Bulgaria on March 28, 1950. Both governments rejected the western protests, the Soviet note commenting that the Danube Commission's Convention of August 18, 1948, eliminated the injuristices of previous international waterways concepts and established the jurisdiction of the riparian states. The note added that the Soviet government would not consider the protests registered by Belgium, Italy and Greece since they were not members of the Danube River Commission under the previous navigational treaty of 1921.

At a meeting of the Danube Commission in December 1951, a Soviet proposal that only states whose vessels were directly involved in an accident on the Danube should take part in its investigation was approved. Yugoslavia objected to the proposal as a violation of the sovereign rights of the riparian states which, Yugoslavia felt, should investigate any accident which occurred in its territory. At a further meeting of the commission at Galatz, Rumania, in July 1952, a commission was set up to examine a Yugoslav proposal toamend the rules of procedure and the Statute. A Yugoslav motion that this commission report to the next session of the commission in December 1952, was rejected; no date was set for further action on the Yugoslav resolution. The Yugoslav delegate (Djurich) maintained that, at present, the commission was not independent but was controlled by the Soviet Union; the purpose of his government's resolution, he continued, would be to make the organization more representative.

On November 15, 1949 the United States, United Kingdom and France sent parallel notes to the governments of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia declaring that the United States, United Kingdom and France did not recognize the Convention of August 18, 1948, establishing the Danube Commission, as having any valid international effect. Declaring that the convention violated concepts of international waterways which had been recognized in Europe for 130 years, the note stated that it also failed to carry out the decision of the Council of Foreign Ministers of December 6, 1946. The convention deprived the United Kingdom and France of rights established by international agreement in 1921, and disregarded the "legitimate interest of non-riparian states."

At the seventh regular meeting of the Danube Commission in December 1952 it was decided to extend the mandate of the special commission established in July 1952 to examine the Yugoslav proposal for amendment of the rules of procedure and the Statute until the eighth regular meeting. However, despite Yugoslav objections, the report of the special commission was not put on the agenda for the eighth meeting. Also discussed at the seventh meeting were the Yugoslav failure to pay dues for the preceding year, and the action of Yugoslavia in taking over control of the locomotive traction of the Sip Canal. Yugoslavia took the position that it had a right to defend its national interests in the light of previous breach of contract by other Commission members. With Yugoslavia objecting to both nominations, the meeting elected the Rumanian representative as chairman and the Soviet delegate as secretary of the Com-mission, the latter for a term of three years.