Brussels : 12/2/03 : The Presidential Committee of the Assembly unanimously adopted a draft decision submitted by president Jan Dirk Blaauw to amend its subtitle. Considering “that the entry into force of the Treaty of Nice on 1 February 2003 means that the ESDP and its associated bodies can no longer be regarded as interim”, it was decided to replace “interim” by “inter parliamentary”. The new title reads as follows :

Assembly of Western European Union
the interparliamentary European Security and Defence Assembly

The decision has immediate effect.

President Blaauw recalled that the Assembly of WEU is Europe’s first interparliamentary Assembly for security and defence questions. The new title would underline the Assembly’s conviction of the necessity to enable national parliamentarians to assume their responsibilities for scrutinising intergovernmental cooperation in the context of Europe’s security and defence policy.

Referring to the current work in the European Convention on the role of national parliaments in the EU he said : “I believe that we can prove that our work and our interparliamentary model is a very suitable form for collective participation by national parliaments in the EU”.

The Greek Presidency of the WEU-EU Council welcomed the decision. Ambassador Tryphon Paraskovopoulos congratulated President Blaauw.

The Assembly also adopted its programme of work for the next session in June. The list of reports is appended to this press release.