Paris, 20/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - At its plenary session in Paris (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.4), the Assembly of the Western European Union - European interim Assembly for Security and Defence, recommended to the WEU Council of ministers devising a new "common concept of European security stemming from the emergence of a wider concept of security". According to the Assembly, the concept devised by the WEU in 1995 is "outdated", following the lessons drawn from Kosovo and the adoption of the Nice Treaty. As "enlarged forum for strategic reflection, the WEU has the task of carrying through the review of the 1995 common security concept, in the framework of a dialogue with all European States interested", says the Assembly, hoping particularly in this context that "European Allies should be consulted over any new agreement between the United States and Russia" and that "the United States' missile defence plan should be carefully monitored".
Furthermore, by adopting a report on the contribution of European countries not members of the European Union in EU-led crisis-management operations, the Assembly calls on the States of the EU also members of WEU to ensure that "the new politico-military structures for EU crisis management remain open to participation by these countries, notably to "take account of geographic factors, historical interests" and concrete experiences.
At its session, which ends on Thursday, the Assembly also called on the EU to provide itself with a "genuine permanent multinational staff headquarters for operational command at strategic level".
Andre Flahaut, Belgian Defence Minister (who, from July, will chair both the Council of the European Union and that of the WEU), confirmed that, in the last half of the year, Belgium would not be convening a WEU Ministerial Council, as was, moreover, the case during the Dutch Presidency. In addition, Mr. Flahaut, hoped for an "in-depth reflection on the direction of ESDP with the existing parliamentary assemblies".