Brussels, 18/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's Defence and Security Committee and the Political and Economic Committees are holding their traditional meetings in Brussels from 17 to 19 February, enabling parliamentarians of the Allied countries from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss freely, outside plenaries, mutual relations and the challenges facing the Atlantic Alliance.. The President of the Assembly, Rafael Estrella, wanted to broaden the debate, beyond political-military issues of direct concern to NATO to transatlantic relations as a whole. Thus, other than Michael Ruhle, Edgard Buckley and Chris Donnelly who turned to political priorities, military planning and the new threats against security, Parliamentarians also heard Christoph Heusgen, Director of the Policy Unit of the EU Council, and General Gustav Hagglund, Chairman of the EU Military Committee, and on Tuesday will hear Commissioners Chris Patten and Gunter Verheugen, and the director General for Trade, Peter Carl.
"One issue that I hold particularly dear", said President Esterella, is the "pressing need for a NATO military structure review", as, notably, due to enlargement "there needs to be a deployment and command structure", that corresponds to current challenges. Concerning NATO enlargement, according to Mr. Estrealla, the Assembly needs to set out the "rationale" by which the next wage of accessions should be fairly consistent. Personally, Mr. Estrella considers that there is no real argument to reject membership of candidates like the Baltic States, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. As for the fight against terrorism, he observed that members of Congress had a tone similar to that of the Europeans, who give priority to diplomatic rather than military actions.