ABSTRACT
Economic cooperation within the CMEA is in a similar crisis as the economy of most of the individual CMEA countries. To be sure, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was at no time a very efficient organization. The beginnings in January 1949 -- very likely a response to the American Marshall Plan vetoed by the USSR for the otherwise willing to participate East European countries -- were more than modest. It took ten years before the first Statute of the organization was adopted. The principle of unanimity could block any action if only one single country vetoed a proposal.
