Budapest, 31/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - "The Western European Union is being absorbed by the European Union. The EU has a Parliament. NATO has a Parliament, this one. The WEU Assembly no longer has any raison d'être", said Javier Ruperez, who announced that he was leaving his post as president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on the occasion of the Assembly's plenary session in progress in Budapest. The Spanish diplomat, who will be replaced until the end of his term of office by the Assembly Vice-President, Tom Bliley (Republican member of the US Congress), considers that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Erupean Parliament may ensure, together, the flexibility, inclusiveness and variable geometry allowing the ESDP to develop in a fully democratic manner. Mr Ruperez stressed in this context that the NATO Assembly has "new relations" with the European Parliament, which was represented in Budapest by ten members, who had for the first time the right to voice their views (see EUROPE of 23 February, p.5, on the subject of the EP/Parliamentary Assembly of NATO meeting during which the two Assemblies had decided to establish regular relations).