Permanent Representative Guimaraes sets out ambitions of Portuguese Presidency which will try to strengthen WEU while bringing it closer to the Union

Brussels, 14/01/2000 (Agence Europe) - On 11 January, Portugal's Permanent Representative, Fernando Andressen Guimaraes presented the working programme of the Portuguese Presidency to the WEU Permanent Council. This programme, he stressed, "is fundamentally based on the prinmcipe that the European Union, at least for a certain period of time, still needs to avail itself of the WEU to conduct crisis management operations and rely on its operational capacity in an effective and stable way". For this reason, Mr. Guimaraes explained in substance, the EU has to be able to count on an organisation that is not "in a fast process of auto-destruction". Whence, Lisbon has drawn up a working programme taking account of both "the reality of the future inclusion of the WEU functions in the European Union" and the fact that", for the time being, it has an important political role to play", as it is responsible for an acquis that cannot be neglected. Whence, the Portuguese Presidency has drawn up an "evolving" programme whose main goals are as follows:

Contribute to the future inclusion of the WEU functions in the EU. Under the political impetus of the EU ad "in a very narrow collaboration with Secretary General Solana and his Secretariats, and in a flexible way", the Portuguese Presidency will pay special attention to the possibilities of reinforcing cooperation between the EU and WEU. Mr. Guimaraes confirmed that part of the WEU's acquis and experience can be transferred to avoiding unnecessary duplications (he stipulated that the Military Staff, the Satellite Centre and the Institute for Security Studies could, for example, work for both organisations);

Petersberg operations conducted under Article 17 of the EU Treaty. The Presidency will pay special attention to operations it undertakes at the request of the Union, these are: - Mape (Multilateral Advisory Element to Albania): it will make a mid-term review that it will hand to the EU and establish the practical and realistic follow-up to this police operation; - Weudam (WEU Demining Assistance Mission to Croatia), for which the Presidency will envisage an extension of its mandate (which expires in May) and the launch of a geographic information system; - the general monitoring mission in Kosovo;

Reinforce the operational capacity of the WEU. Mr. Guimaraes stressed here, "the major event" that the Exercise CMX/CRISEX will be, enabling the WEU to test crisis management mechanisms and procedures as well as of using NATO assets. ""the close observation of this Exercise by representatives o the EU Secretariat and Commission will be another important step to a closer working culture", he said, stressing that lessons would be drawn from this exercise to improve, if need be, the mechanisms and procedures an that they would be "very useful to the EU's future responsibilities";

Harmonise this project with work carried out in NATO. For the Portuguese Presidency, meetings of the Joint Council should be used to assess developments of work, as well as "political forum for information and debate on security matters";

Maintain the dialogue with all countries that are interested in security and stability, especially the Associate and Partner members of the WEU. The Portuguese Presidency intends fuelling an "intensive and fruitful dialogue" through its dual presidential role (EU/WEU), including on the development of the Common European Security and Defence Policy (the WEU Council having to become a source of information on the sensitivities of the Allies for both the WEU and the EU;