Paris, 20 January 2010 – The ratification and entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty marks a significant step in the ongoing political and institutional changes taking place within the European Union. The President of the Assembly, Robert WALTER MP, was heard today at a joint session of the European Affairs Committee and the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed forces Committee of the French Senate on the subject of “National parliaments and the common security and defence policy in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty”.

President WALTER first focused on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The present geopolitical situation is far from reassuring. In this fragile environment, it is important for the EU’s foreign and security policy to be sustainable. This will depend on a joint political assessment of the challenges and threats facing the EU member states, on their ability to identify their key common interests and on a decision as to whether they want to use the CFSP as the instrument to respond to those threats and challenges. “The EU should now make a dedicated effort to close the gap between discourse on CFSP and how it is actually put into practice”, he said. For the time being the EU is more “helpful” than “powerful”.

President WALTER then reviewed the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations underlining that “the EU has indeed made considerable progress in developing its capabilities for deploying troops for CSDP missions abroad and can boast a number of successes such as those in Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and also the counter-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia, as well as the long-standing mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, we must not lose sight of the shortcomings which still need to be addressed: the EU’s civilian action in Afghanistan is a case in point. […] The EU has had and is still facing problems in framing a genuine common policy on Afghanistan; as a result of political differences between member states its approach remains piecemeal”, he regretted.

During the debate, questions focused on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty in the area of CSDP, with particular emphasis on Permanent Structured Cooperation (PSC), the possibility of an EU operational headquarters and a second St Malo summit, the relationship between NATO and the EU, armaments cooperation and parliamentary scrutiny.

President WALTER underlined that “the ESDA does not stand in the way of the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty but rather offers a cost-effective and readily available tool for national parliaments. […] As regards parliamentary scrutiny of the CSDP, not one EU member state has expressed the wish to transfer the sovereign prerogatives of its parliament in the area of security and defence to the European Parliament. The CSDP is an intergovernmental policy and therefore remains subject to the scrutiny of national parliaments”.

As regards the European Parliament, under the Lisbon Treaty it is only “consulted” and kept “informed” of matters relating to CSDP. President WALTER also drew attention to the fact that the European Parliament “has its own interests, which are not necessarily in line with those of national parliaments”.

He pointed out it would only be possible to transfer the responsibility for democratic scrutiny of CSDP to the European Parliament in the event that the member states decided to establish a “common Union defence policy” that might possibly lead to a “common defence” which, he stressed, seemed “highly unlikely in the short or medium term”.