Paris, 3 December – The WEU Assembly on Wednesday called for Europe to coordinate its armaments policy to avoid the errors of the past.

A report, prepared for the Technological and Aerospace Committee by Pedro Agramunt Font de Mora (Spain/Fed) and adopted by the Assembly, said that after 10 years’ work on coordinating fragmented initiatives for cooperation “nations are still doing their own thing”.

Presenting the report, entitled “The Development of Armaments Policy in Europe – reply to the Annual Report of the Council”, Mr Agramunt Font de Mora said that a European armaments strategy must be devised and the multiplicity of initiatives centralised to “avoid the pitfalls of the past, which we risk repeating”. If the European Union is to be a centre of power, “it must have the necessary military and equipment resources”.

During the debate on the report, Lluis Maria de Puig (Spain/Soc), a former Assembly President, noted that Europe’s national defence capabilities were usually forgotten in comparisons with US strength. In the event of an attack against Europe, all the national as well as multinational military capabilities would intervene, he said.

The report pressed for the future European defence agency to act as a hub linking the various European armaments initiatives, but without setting up a “buy European” regime. It should be flexible and open to newcomers, and should “lend robust support to the bid for autonomy” expressed by EU heads of state and government at their Cologne Summit in 1999.

The report described the difficulties encountered in cooperation, including national sovereignty, analysed all the bodies and institutions involved and detailed all the mistakes and shortcomings to date.