Strasbourg 3 June – On Tuesday the WEU Assembly advocated setting up a “European security and defence college” in order to develop a real European security and defence culture.

In her report on “Developing a security and defence culture in the ESDP”, Mrs Eleonora Katseli  (Greece/PASOK) echoes fears that “the training of staff responsible for the management of the institutions of the future may be neglected in favour of spending and plans for harmonising military systems”. Reminding members that the idea of setting up a European security and defence college is an idea that has been around for a long time but never put into practise, the Rapporteur took the view that, after all the declarations in principle, it was time at last that some action was taken.

In the same report, the Assembly advocates strengthening existing exchange programmes between military institutions and making compulsory some joint training courses that focus on the new tasks troops have to deal with, as well as encouraging “the formation of a core coordinating body for organising exchanges between national military training schools”.

During the same debate, the Assembly adopted the recommendations contained in a report submitted by Mr Milos Budin (Italy/Soc) on “Parliamentary scrutiny of the ESDP in national parliaments”. Endorsing wholeheartedly Mr Budin’s conclusions deploring the lack of European interparliamentary coordination at the time of the Iraq crisis, the Assembly advocated in particular stepping up “efforts to make the network of relations among parliamentarians of the different European countries more effective”. Otherwise, as Mr Malcolm Bruce (UK/Lib-Dem) put it during the debate, “if we fail to coordinate policy, we severely weaken our national objectives as well as our collective European objectives”.