About the Assembly
National parliamentarians working together for Europe’s security
The Assembly was founded in 1954 when the 1948 Brussels Treaty on European security and defence cooperation was modified to establish the “Western European Union”. Article IX of the modified Brussels Treaty obliges WEU member governments represented in the Council to provide national parliamentarians who sit in the Assembly with a written annual report on their security and defence activities.
The parliamentarians examine the report and make recommendations to governments which are bound to reply. The aim is to ensure that cooperation between governments at the European level is mirrored by cooperation between national parliamentarians meeting at the same level.
When intergovernmental policy is accompanied by interparliamentary scrutiny, there is more transparency and democratic accountability than when scrutiny is confined to the national level alone.
The Assembly, located in Paris, examines and supports intergovernmental activities at the European level in all areas of European security and defence including cooperation on defence equipment. Following the transfer of WEU’s operational activities to the EU, the Assembly’s main focus is to scrutinise the EU’s European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) while continuing to monitor the implications of WEU’s collective defence commitment under Article V of the modified Brussels Treaty, as well as cooperation with NATO under Article IV, which establishes an organic link with the Atlantic Alliance. The Assembly pays particular attention to issues such as peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.
The Assembly’s legality
The main feature of the modified Brussels Treaty is that it obliges the WEU Council to report on security and defence activities to national parliamentarians in the Assembly. No such obligation exists for the EU Council. Hence the Assembly has been transformed into an interparliamentary forum for the ESDP on the basis of the parlia¬mentary instruments for which the WEU legal framework makes provision.
“Double-hatting”, the system whereby a person works for his or her country in both the EU and WEU, facilitates the dialogue between parliamentarians and governments: the Ambassadors representing member states in the ESDP’s main political steering body, the EU Political and Security Committee (PSC), also make up the WEU Permanent Council, which regularly meets the Assembly’s committees. Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers sit on both the EU and WEU Councils. The EU High Representative Javier Solana, who is responsible for the ESDP, is at the same time the WEU Secretary-General, thus creating a link between both organisations at the highest executive level.
This process does not amount to control of the executive in the strict sense of the term, which is the prerogative of the national parliaments. Rather, it constitutes a mechanism for being informed and consulted by the European decision-makers both before and after decisions are taken, so as to be able to monitor intergovernmental activities at the European level in the field of the CFSP and ESDP. This makes it easier for each national parliament to exercise democratic scrutiny over its government and is also essential for winning the full support of citizens for the ESDP.
The Assembly enables national parliamentarians from all EU and European NATO member states to establish a structured dialogue with the EU executive, giving them the opportunity to cross-examine Ministers from those countries. By being better informed about ESDP issues as a result, they are more able to scrutinise their own governments’ security and defence policy and to promote a European vision of security and defence questions. In scrutinising its government’s policy, a parliament must be able to take full account of European interests.
Who are the members of the Assembly?
39 European countries, including all EU and European NATO member states, have the right to send parliamentary delegations to the Assembly. It currently has nearly 400 members. Many are members of the defence, foreign or European affairs committees in their own parliaments. The number of delegates depends on the size of the country. Members of the Assembly comprise parliamentarians of all the EU member states (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). All members of the delegations from the 27 member states of the European Union are offered the same rights in the Assembly, in particular the right to speak, vote and propose amendments in plenary sessions and committee meetings. Associates are European members of NATO who are not members of the EU (Iceland, Norway and Turkey). Partners include other European countries (in particular Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine). Delegations from other parliaments, the European Parliament or other interparliamentary assemblies may be invited to attend sessions of the Assembly as parliamentary observers.
What are the Assembly’s structures?
The main work is done by four committees. The Defence Committee is concerned with European security and defence issues from an operational and military standpoint. The Political Committee addresses the political aspects of European security and defence. The Technological and Aerospace Committee is concerned with matters pertaining to defence and dual technologies and to cooperation in the field of armaments.
The Committee for Parliamentary and Public Relations is responsible for cooperation with national parliaments and monitors and analyses security and defence debates in national parliaments as well as parliamentary questions put to national governments. It also makes comparative studies and proposes improved benchmarks for government accountability.
How do national parliamentarians work in the Assembly?
The members of the Assembly meet twice a year for plenary sessions and throughout the year in committee meetings, conferences and colloquies. Each committee appoints Rapporteurs from among its members, who present draft reports and recommendations on current security and defence issues to the competent committee. After several debates during which the draft recommendations are often considerably modified, committee members vote on the final texts which are then submitted to the plenary session for amendment and adoption by the Assembly. Assembly Recommendations are sent to the Council, which is obliged to give written replies. Parliamentarians also have the right to put questions to the Council.
The Assembly’s achievements
Governments and citizens appreciate the Assembly’s strategic reflection on all questions relating to security and stability on the European continent. The Assembly’s reports are recognised as reference documents for the international debate on security and defence issues. Progress in European security and defence integration has often been initiated by the Assembly’s recommendations:
_ the Petersberg tasks, agreed by Ministers in 1992, still define the scope of ESDP crisis-management activities;
_ the Satellite Centre in Torrejón near Madrid now provides the EU with a degree of autonomy in analysing satellite imagery for intelli¬gence;
_ the Institute for Security Studies in Paris has been trans¬ferred to the EU;
_ Defence Ministers participate in the Council’s activities;
_ increasing Europeanisation of NATO;
_ recognition of the need for a European chain of command;
_ the handbook on European military standards and procedures, given as a reference to the EU Military Staff;
_ Europe-wide cooperation on defence equipment and in particular the creation of the European Defence Agency, which has absorbed the functions of the Western European Armaments Group (WEAG) and the Western European Armaments Organisation (WEAO).
All the above achievements are the direct result of WEU’s past experience and of the political input and impetus generated by national parliamentarians working together in the Assembly.
Enhancing the role of national parliaments in the EU
Following the French and Dutch “no” votes in the 2005 referendums on the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, the EU governments extended the “period of reflection” on the future of Europe. At its meeting on 21 and 22 June 2007, the European Council decided to convene a new intergovernmental conference (IGC) in order to amend the EU Treaties. It published a clear mandate for the IGC to draw up a “Reform Treaty” with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the enlarged Union. Following the IGC conference, held from July to October 2007, the Treaty amending the Treaty on EU and the Treaty establishing the EC was approved by the Heads of State and Government of the twenty-seven member states. It was signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007. The aim is for the Lisbon Treaty to be ratified by the Member States before the European Parliament elections scheduled for June 2009.
A new article on the role of national parliaments in the EU makes provision for interparliamentary cooperation between national parliaments and with the European Parliament (EP) in accordance with the Protocol on the role of national parliaments in the EU, which points to the complementary work of national parliamentarians and members of the EP and recognises the need for closer cooperation between them. While the protocol, which is appended to the Reform Treaty, opens up additional possibilities for interparliamentary dialogue on the common security and defence policy, it is insufficient because it goes no further than to propose the holding of conferences as the framework for dialogue. But the Assembly has for many years affirmed in both its reports and its dialogue with the governments of the Member States that, in the interest of democratic legitimacy, European foreign, security and defence policy must be subject to democratic scrutiny by national parliamentarians meeting in a European interparliamentary assembly.
For more than 50 years the Assembly, through its political proposals, has been working for more European integration in the field of security and defence. It enables the national parliamentarians of European countries to make political recommendations collectively to European governments. For as long as there is no common defence in the EU, the Assembly provides the solution to the problem of a democratic deficit within the EU by exercising “interparliamentary” scrutiny over what the governments have stated will remain an “intergovernmental” policy doubtless for a long time to come. The European Security and Defence Assembly believes this problem has to be addressed as a matter of urgency before the entry into force of the new EU Reform Treaty. De jure recognition by the EU of the Assembly’s role is long overdue.
