Paris, 19 April 2002. President Klaus Bühler, MdB, visited Rome on 16-18 April at the invitation of the Chairman of the new Italian parliamentary delegation to the WEU Assembly, Mr Marco Zacchera. The purpose of the invitation was primarily to present the new Italian Government’s policy for its term as Western European Armaments Group (WEAG) Chairman and its plans for the future of European security and defence, and, at the same time, to highlight the Italian Parliament’s involvement in the current phase of development of new institutional structures for Europe. 
 
Mr Klaus Bühler and his Italian hosts were in agreement on a number of fundamental issues. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Mr Pierferdinando Casini, gave assurances that the Italian Parliament would endeavour to ensure that Europe was no longer “an economic giant but a political dwarf” with no common foreign policy, as he himself had had occasion to note during his recent trip to Israel and Palestine.  The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Gianfranco Fini, said he had taken particular note of the discussions in the WEU Assembly on the political and parliamentary shortcomings of the ESDP.  As the member of the Italian Government delegated to the Convention, he undertook to ensure that the subject was raised there, while stressing that the Convention must endeavour to complete its work with the utmost dispatch, and with practical result, by the end of the first half of 2003 – in other words before the European Parliament elections and the first phase of EU enlargement. 
 
The Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Roberto Antonione urged the WEU Assembly to proffer its experience in putting forward proposals to the Convention on ESDP institutions. 
 
Mr Rocco Buttiglione, the Minister responsible for European Union policy, and Mr Casini were both somewhat sceptical on the subject of setting up a European second chamber, favouring the option of a strengthened role for the national parliaments working in close coordination with international bodies.  The Italian Parliament had recently instituted a new procedure for monthly meetings between the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Defence Committees and the Heads of Delegations to the WEU, OSCE and NATO Assemblies, thus creating synergy between them. 
 
The Defence Minister, Mr Antonio Martino, referred to WEU activities, in particular those undertaken under the WEAG Presidency. In his view, closer integration and cooperation between partners was needed for building the ESPD and in getting to grips with three priority tasks: armaments programmes, intelligence and the command structure.  He hoped, like Mr Klaus Bühler, for greater integration of civilian and military research, stressing that the armaments industry was there to meet defence needs and not the other way round. There was a need to redefine the Petersberg missions more precisely in the light of the events of 11 September 200, prior to setting up European institutions and procedures.  Mr Antonio Martino, who showed a lively interest in the Assembly’s proposals for an ESDP institutional architecture, hoped to attend the Assembly’s forthcoming plenary session, to be held in Paris in June 2002.