Brussels, 16/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs strongly insisted that the cost of European Union security and defence operations should be covered by the Community budget and that the Parliament should be consulted before any operation. This opinion is taken on board in the own-initiative report on the funding of foreign policy and joint security priorities developed by the committee's chairman, German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok, and adopted by a very large majority (36 to 5 with 2 abstentions) by the foreign affairs committee. The report will be examined by the plenary on Wednesday in Strasbourg.
The Brok report affirms that the EU's security interests would be better served by identifying strained relations, by seeking to prevent potential crises and by resolving conflicts close to its external borders. The Union's action should therefore focus on the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, southern Caucasus, the southern rim of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and West Africa. The parliamentary committee suggests that reflection is needed on a budgetary mechanism that would allow rapid availability of funding to meet crisis situations. At the same time, it considers that, pending the creation of a Community financing system, the Parliament should at least have information on the breakdown of CFSP spending between the different regions. The EU is expected to increase its defence capabilities in order to have a force of 5,000 available, permanently able to conduct humanitarian operations from 2004. The report also stresses the need to strengthen relations between the United States and the EU as equal partners. In the context of these relations, special attention should be paid to rebuilding Iraq, combating proliferation, combating terrorism, controlling arms exports, and the question of impunity (together with the International Criminal Court).
The report also tackles the institutional reforms envisaged by the draft constitutional treaty. It considers that the future EU Foreign Minister should be a vice-president of the European Commission. The administrative departments of the Council and the Commission which will come under this minister should be merged into a single administration within the Commission, say the MEPs, who, after Mr Brok, also regret that qualified majority vote is not extended to foreign and security policy also.