31/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the fringes of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly in Lubliana on Tuesday, NATO's Secretary General, Dutch national Jaap de Hop Scheffer, spoke about the French 'No' vote on the European Constitution, saying commenting it was in NATO's interests that Europe further develops in a strong way (meaning with the Constitution). On the fringes of the same meeting, the Slovenian defence minister, Karl Erjavec, told Europe that Europe's procedures would now take longer, particularly for European defence. In an interview with Le Figaro on Tuesday, Karl Lamers, the former CDU MEP who launched debate about a 'hard core' in Europe in 1994, said that in 1954, the French parliament's No vote had scuppered the draft European Defence Community, but this had led to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and that rather than defence, it had been the economy which had made it possible to progress. He asked why it wouldn't be possible in 2005 to go in the other direction - focussing on the prospects of European defence to get the integration process up and running again.