Paris, 3 December – WEU Assembly President Klaus Bühler lashed out at the plan by the WEU Council’s budget committee to cut the Assembly’s operating budget by more than 25% next year.
 
The Assembly is prepared to help curb spending, « but cannot accept zero nominal growth, » he said on Monday during his opening speech at the four-day plenary Assembly session. This would fail to take account of inflation, and would mean that the funds to pay for higher staff costs decided by governments would have to be found elsewhere.
 
Apart from reducing allocations, the budget committee’s proposal to scrap WEU associate members’ contributions « gives the wrong political signal, » and will « increase the gap between us and them,» he said. It is « politically irresponsible. »
 
Parliamentarians from the associate members--the European Nato countries, Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland and Turkey--said they were willing to maintain their contributions. « I regard our role in the Assembly’s work as crucial, » said Iceland delegation leader Kristjan Palsson.
 
All political groups in the Assembly endorsed Mr. Bühler ‘s criticisms and demanded an emergency debate to draw up a resolution calling for the Council to reject the proposal when it meets on 14 December to vote on the budget and other issues.  Liberal group leader Jan Dirk Blaauw (Netherlands) said he shared Mr. Bühler’s concern, and that the budget cuts amounted to a case of euthanasia.
 
Turning to other questions, Mr. Bühler said that the big unanswered questions following the September 11 attacks are « what is terrorism and who are the terrorists. » He suggested that the United Nations draft an anti-terrorism convention « to provide a uniform way of reading the situation. »
 
Although the  EU has adopted a comprehensive terrorism action plan, it « has not achieved the degree of progress towards building military crisis-management capabilities that would have allowed it to play a role in Afghanistan, » he said. One problem member countries have yet to resolve is how to finance the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) missions, « which no-one seems keen to talk about. »