Paris, 5 June: The WEU Assembly on Wednesday called on the parliaments of the member countries of the organisation “to submit proposals on parliamentary scrutiny of the ESDP to the Convention on the future of the European Union”.
Submitting a report on ‘The Parliamentary dimension in the new European security and defence architecture’, Mr Arnau Navarro (Spain, Fed.) regretted that ESDP-related issues did not take sufficient pride of place in national parliaments. “There are practically no special debates on ESDP. Such matters tend to be raised in the more general context of the reform of the European institutions”, he said. In his view, this situation was the more regrettable, given the number of differing positions on the future of ESDP and real difficulties in arriving at a consensus”.
The Assembly endorsed the Rapporteur’s call to the national parliaments to “stimulate debate on the future of ESDP and involve the general public”. Parliaments were then asked to “submit proposals on parliamentary scrutiny of the ESDP to the Convention on the future of the European Union”.
The Assembly also called on the national parliaments to “increase their efforts to inform public opinion so that it understands the need for a European Security and Defence Policy and for the collective participation of national parliaments in the shaping of that policy”.