Luxembourg, 24 February 2010 – The Committee for Parliamentary and Public Relations of the European Security and Defence Assembly/Assembly of WEU undertook a fact-finding mission to Luxembourg on 23 and 24 February 2010.

Luxembourg’s Defence Minister, Jean-Marie HALSDORF met the Chairman of the Committee for Parliamentary and Public Relations of the Assembly, Paul WILLE (Belgium, Liberal Group), and Norbert HAUPERT (Luxembourg, Federated Group), Chairman of the Luxembourg Delegation to the Assembly, for talks on cooperation on European defence, and in particular interparliamentary cooperation.

There was general agreement regarding the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. It was necessary to move forward step by step and in the right direction – without hurrying things – on the basis of what was already in place and working. This applied particularly to interparliamentary scrutiny of the Common Security and Defence Policy.

Mr WILLE observed that during each stage of the process of reflection involved in carrying forward European integration it had been necessary first to develop a political vision and then define structures. In the past defence had been the preserve of the military and specialists in the field. Now the media had homed in on it and the public was taking an interest.

Mr HAUPERT emphasised the importance of the interparliamentary dimension to a country like Luxembourg: it was difficult for national parliamentarians to deal with all aspects of defence at the level of their home parliament. The interparliamentary level was vital when it came to responding on a global scale.

“We have to take the past into account when preparing for the future”, was the view of Luxembourg’s Defence Minister. In pursuit of that goal, Committee members also visited the Virtual Resource Centre for Knowledge about Europe (Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l'Europe or CVCE) at the Château de Sanem where they were given a presentation of the multimedia research file in the European NAvigator (ENA) digital library (http://www.ena.lu) tracing the development of WEU over more than half a century. Charles GOERENS, a former President of the Assembly and Member of the European Parliament, took an active part in the exchanges of views that followed the presentation. The ENA digital library, designed and built by the CVCE, today contains over 16 000 documents describing the European integration process. A million documents a month were accessed in 2009 and this proven success of the CVCE shows how necessary information on Europe is to those in politics and to the public at large!

On 24 February the Committee was received in the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies by Deputy Speaker Lydie POLFER. The Committee then held a joint meeting with the ESDA’s Luxembourg Delegation and the Luxembourg parliamentary Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee, under its Chairman Ben FAYOT, mainly to discuss interparliamentary cooperation on European defence.