Armand De Decker, the president of both the Western European Union (WEU) and of the Belgian Senate, believes that the European security and defence policy is today's most important dossier in European integration, because it will determine whether the EU, an economic power and a monetary power, is to become a "global power". He spoke before the French Senate on this subject (see this column yesterday), clearing up and adding to the previous speakers' comments (see our bulletin of 4 December, p.7). I will sum up in five points the priorities of the president of the parliamentary assembly of the only European organisation with general competency in matters of defence:
1. No Member State should leave the WEU before the EU Constitution enters into force. Mr De Decker feels that is would be dangerous for the WEU mutual defence clause to go out before a similar EU clause came in, and explained: "as long as the Constitution is not adopted, the sole legal basis for Europe's autonomy in security and defence matters will remain article V of the Treaty of Brussels. And as the year 2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of this Treaty, the Member States could apply to leave the WEU and cause a kind of unravelling. This would be an extremely dangerous thing to do if the European Constitution did not contain equivalent provisions to article V". Mr De Decker then added: "I fear such departures. Germany especially has some unpleasant memories of the beginnings of the WEU (...), hence the particularly worrying nature of Germany's inclination to leave the WEU without concertation, and before the EU has taken over the mutual solidarity clause of the WEU Treaty".
2. The "mutual defence" clause must be simplified. The reference to an "armed attack" could be removed because now that the Cold War is over, this kind of attack is no longer to be feared. Mr De Decker proposes the following wording (our translation): "the Member States owe each other mutual help and assistance in all fields and with all the means at their disposal, civil and military". This wording would help to overcome the misgivings I wrote of yesterday. In the opposite case, these matters are governed by the Treaty of Nice, which has a "disastrous specificity": it bans all reinforced co-operation in the military field. There would therefore be neither structured co-operation nor the solidarity clause.
3. National parliaments must be involved in CFSP control. Here is the gist of what Mr De Decker said (along the lines of the speech summarised in our bulletin of 11 December, p.8): "the European Parliament has neither the legitimacy nor the competency needed. It is the national parliaments which vote on defence budgets, who decide to send troops, who will carry messages of comfort to families who have lost a soldier. It is therefore legitimate to provide a form of control involving national parliaments. I believe that we have room to negotiate on this (...). We must look at the evidence: the ESDP will remain largely intergovernmental. Member States will not renounce all their sovereignty overnight. National parliaments will not vote on defence budgets and authorise troop deployment overnight (...). Pragmatism dictates that an interparliamentary body is needed for ESDP".
4. The Armament Agency and free competition between military industries. The European Armament Agency's progress is encouraging, but Mr De Decker remains cautious: "I will celebrate its creation when it takes up its duties with no overlap with the organisations which came before it". He added: "industrial co-operation in weaponry is highly important. It is through industry that we can hope to shift the national misgivings of national administrations. I hope that the article of the EU Treaty which excludes weapons from free competition [article 296] will be revised so that this exception is limited to strategic weapons (...). The new agency must be effective. Of course, industrial interests, relayed by national weapons directors, will oppose this. But I believe that if we look to the EDC (European Defence Community) for inspiration, we will find useful pieces of information. This is a problem of substance".
5. EU-NATO relations. "I am convinced", said Mr De Decker, "that the European Constitution will contain a sentence on links to NATO. These links are evolving. NATO remains indispensable for the protection of the European territory and to lead far-off operations". He believes that "things would calm down if France returned to the military command of NATO. This would put an end to many unjustified suspicions, as France has made a considerable contribution to many of the Alliance's recent operations".
(F.R.)