The WEU Residue
76. When the principal functions of the WEU have
been transferred to the EU, there will remain a problem about
what to do with a number of residual elements of the WEU. The
Secretary of State told us that there were—
...still some discussions
that we have to have about what points of the institutional make-up
of the WEU would continue...[118]
The written evidence supplemented this, saying—
We expect the establishment
of new structures and arrangements for defence in the EU to lead
to the transfer of some WEU's functions to the EU. Other functions
would no longer be required and could be discarded ... We are
still considering with partners the future role of the groups
which are under the WEU umbrella including the Satellite Centre,
Institute for Security Studies, WEU Assembly, Western European
Armaments Organisation, Western European Armaments Group, Western
European Logistics Group, Eurolongterm, Eurocom and Transatlantic
Forum.[119]
77. The most apparently contentious residual function
of the WEU is Article V of the Brussels Treaty—there would
be great reluctance on the part of the neutrals to incorporate
these provisions for collective self-defence into the Treaty on
European Union, and any attempt to do so would in any case raise
other substantial political and procedural difficulties. However,
as the government points out in its written evidence—
The 1948 Modified Brussels
Treaty and the Article V collective defence guarantee it includes
for full members could remain, but continue to be met through
NATO where each nation has a complementary commitment.[120]
Our predecessors in their 1996 report on the WEU
concluded that—
... the WEU's role in collective
defence under the modified Brussels Treaty is of no continuing
significance ...[121]
We see no reason to amend that conclusion now.
78. There are also the two armaments cooperation
groups—the Western European Armaments Groups (WEAG) and
the Western European Armaments Organisation (WEAO) as well as
a number of subsidiary organisations. They are yet to produce
any very quantifiable achievements in advancing European armaments
cooperation, and have proved unwieldy and very slow-moving. In
our 1998 report on aspects of defence procurement and industrial
policy, we concluded that—
... the WEU's procurement
organisations may provide a welcome contribution to harmonising
the demand side of the defence market in Europe. The need for
this is urgent, but real progress remains slow.[122]
There has been no acceleration since we drew that
conclusion. Our predecessors concluded in 1996 that the WEU was—
... not essential to European
collaboration in defence procurement. WEAG can operate separately
from WEU on the coordination of information and research. Aspects
of this work could eventually be drawn more closely into the ...
EU ...[123]
Once again we see no reason to amend our predecessors'
conclusion. As we made clear in our recent report, we regard the
four-nation European Organisation for Joint Armaments Co-operation
(OCCAR) as pointing the more hopeful way forward towards a possible
European Armaments Agency.[124]
The continued existence of the WEAG and the WEAO, should governments
see a need for them, does not require the WEU umbrella for them
to shelter beneath.
79. There is also the WEU satellite facility in Spain,
at Torrejon. We took some evidence on this in private in connection
with another inquiry. We were told—
... the WEU space centre,
which has quite a strong French bias ... is not available for
other than distinct WEU business ... nations can call upon the
WEU to do work for them, but clearly if it is a national task
rather than a WEU task they cannot have the benefit. That is a
French agreement, a releasability issue ... It is a French rule
that their Helios military satellite imagery is not to be used
for those national tasks.[125]
We asked, therefore, whether what our witnesses were
saying was that the UK did not need this facility. Their reply
did not directly contradict this hypothesis. What that evidence
demonstrated, to our satisfaction, is that the 'WEU' status of
the facility is rather bogus—it is essentially a French
initiative which it is prepared to share with its allies. This
situation is unlikely therefore to be much affected by the disappearance
of the WEU. In the light of this evidence, we consider that
there is a need for further consideration of the cost-effectiveness
of the Torrejon satellite facility and the grounds for continued
UK participation in it.
80. A major part of the argument for the new ESDI
arrangements is that it reduces the number of overlapping security
organisations in Europe, a goal which this Committee has consistently
supported and urged. None of the problems the Secretary of State
suggested were posed by the WEU's winding-up seem to us insuperable.
In the interests of cost-effectiveness and institutional clarity,
we conclude that it would be best to ensure a clean break with
the WEU and, once it has completed its purpose, for it and its
dependent organisations to be wound-up, transferred or floated-off
as rapidly as possible, with as little institutional residue as
can be achieved, and with any remaining running costs brought
as near as possible to zero. Article XII of the Brussels Treaty
provides a simple mechanism for the legal winding-up of the organisation
and the cessation of all treaty obligations.
Accountability
81. If the WEU is wound-up and the Brussels Treaty
in due course ceases to have effect, the WEU Parliamentary Assembly
will disappear along with it.[126]
Unlike the first, Community, pillar of
the EU, the CFSP is intergovernmental and the EU Commission and
the European Parliament have no direct part to play in it. The
'pooling' of sovereignty involved in the workings of the second
pillar has therefore always been of a different nature from that
which is involved in the first pillar. In moving the European
Defence Initiative forward, the government has been anxious to
indicate that it need not involve any diminution of national
control of defence. The Prime Minister has stressed that—
In any particular crisis,
the European Union will develop a comprehensive policy. But within
that, deployment of forces is a decision for Governments. I see
no role for the European Parliament or the Court of Justice. Nor
will the European Commission have a decision-making role on military
matters.[127]
However, the Treaty on European Union requires that—
The Presidency shall consult
the European Parliament on the main aspects and the basic choices
of the common foreign and security policy and shall ensure that
the views of the European Parliament are duly taken into consideration.
The European Parliament shall be kept regularly informed by the
Presidency and the Commission of the development of the Union's
foreign and security policy. The European Parliament may ask questions
of the Council or make recommendations to it. It shall hold an
annual debate on progress in implementing the common foreign and
security policy.[128]
This is a peculiarly EU version of the separation
of powers, and it allows plenty of scope for the relatively unexamined
exercise of executive prerogative. Since Maastricht, the question
has frequently been raised of whether, in relation to the second
pillar of the Union, the provision for democratic oversight of
the activities of the Council of Ministers is sufficient.[129].
The creation of the CESDP and the disappearance of WEU will reopen
this question. When we asked the Secretary of State where democratic
accountability for the CESDP would lie, he commented—
... the European Parliament
clearly has a responsibility in relation to Common and Foreign
Security Policy ... it can ... have debates about European defence,
but we would not expect to see the European Parliament reaching
specific conclusions ... they would not have a formal constitutional
role but then, in a sense, neither does the [WEU] Assembly ...
We emphasise ... the role of individual nations in making decisions
as to whether, for example, to deploy forces and I would be entirely
content, as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, that the scrutiny
of that decision will continue to rest firmly in Parliament ...
I am perfectly willing to listen to arguments that say the [WEU]
Assembly should continue ... but I think we need to look precisely
at what its role has been in the past, what it has achieved and
whether that kind of scrutiny, which I recognise is essential
in democracies, cannot be, and is not, carried out through domestic
parliaments ...You have got to be clear as to what it is you see
to be the continuing role of the Assembly.[130]
The Secretary of State poses fair questions, both
about the past work of the WEU Parliamentary Assembly and its
future role. We approach the question of accountability with an
open mind and without a presumption in favour of any of the existing
parliamentary bodies. However, on one point we are quite clear.
It would not be appropriate for the European Parliament to take
on the job of scrutinising the CFSP and the CESDP. That is beyond
its remit, and the intergovernmental nature of the second pillar,
and the particular questions of national sovereignty involved
in the deployment of armed forces, means that it will remain inappropriate
for the European Parliament to have any significant role in this
area in the foreseeable future. The Constitutional Affairs Committee
of the EP has been pressing for treaty changes to bring the second
pillar within the EP's competence to be considered at the current
Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of the EU. Our starting point
is that accountability in these areas must unambiguously remain
with the member states' national parliaments.
82. Since the WEU Assembly was founded in 1954, it
has been joined by two other parliamentary assemblies with responsibility
for oversight of closely related matters—the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The memberships
of the three assemblies, both in national and individual terms,
are often overlapping but are not identical. Our predecessors
examined the three assemblies in a report published in May 1996
and concluded that it was open to debate whether the resources
of the three could be better used, suggesting the possibility
of a single North American and European parliamentary congress
to debate issues of security and defence.[131]
However, given that each assembly is attached to a separate 'executive'
body, we consider that attempting to merge them in one body could
risk blurring lines of accountability rather than clarifying them.
A cost to the UK of participation in these assemblies of around
£1.5 million a year, and globally of around £10 million
a year,[132]
represents reasonable value for money in view of the vital importance
that should be attached to parliamentary accountability. However,
if governments are prepared to look afresh at the institutional
arrangements for the ESDI, parliamentarians should be prepared
to do so as well, and the assemblies should not be exempt from
value for money considerations. The key criteria which any proposed
new arrangements following on from the eventual disappearance
of the WEU should be judged against are that they: improve accountability;
reduce unnecessary duplication, increase inclusivity; and reflect
the structure of the actual institutional arrangements which they
hold to account.
83. The WEU Assembly makes much of the fact that
it is treaty-based (implicitly drawing an unfavourable contrast
to the NATO and OSCE Assemblies) and argues that the parliamentary
dimension of the CESDP will be viable only if covered in the Treaty
on European Union.[133]
For any new parliamentary institution to enjoy this particular
distinction would require an amendment to the Treaty; and this
could open rather wider questions than the oversight of the CESDP
in isolation. There have been a number of proposals around for
some time relating to multinational parliamentary scrutiny of
the second pillar of the EU, including that of creating a second
chamber of the EP comprised of delegated members of national parliaments.
The WEU Assembly, meeting in special session in Lisbon on 21 March,
called for itself to be transformed into a CESDP Assembly. A more
modest and immediately practical suggestion might be to set up
a parliamentary body along the lines of COFAC (the EU-based Conference
of Foreign Affairs Committees which allows participation by aspirant
countries' parliamentary representatives). This could provide
a forum for the defence committees of the member states' parliaments
(possibly in partnership with the foreign affairs committees)
to have a more structured exchange of information and views than
is at present possible. It would be a sufficiently flexible forum
to enable it to operate in many different configurations to include
both aspirant EU, and NATO, members. The setting-up of the
CESDP means that the democratic deficit in holding the Council
of Ministers to account for actions taken under the provisions
of the 'second pillar' of the EU has become more apparent and
the finding of a solution more urgent. Any proposal to remedy
this must recognise the intergovernmental nature of the pillar's
arrangements by emphasising the role of national parliaments.
112 op cit paras
29 and 30 Back
113 Helsinki
European Council, Presidency Conclusion, para 28 Back
114 Q
103 Back
115 Q
97 Back
116 Q
97 Back
117 QQ
98-99 Back
118 Q
107 Back
119 Ev
p 26, Appendix 3, para 3 Back
120 Ev
p 26 Back
121 Fourth
Report, Session 1995-96, op cit, para 11 Back
122 Seventh
Report, Session 1997-98, Aspects of Defence Procurement and
Industrial Policy, HC 675, para 14 Back
123 Fourth
Report, Session 1995-96, op cit, para 41 Back
124 Second
Report, Session 1999-2000, op cit, para 26 Back
125 Fifth
Report, Session 1999-2000, The Defence Geographic and Imagery
Intelligence Agency, HC 100, Q 61 Back
126 The
Parliamentary Assembly operates under the provision of Article
IX of the modified Brussels Treaty, which states, 'The Council
of Western European Union shall make an annual report on its activities
and in particular concerning the control of armaments to an Assembly
composed of representatives to the Consultative Assembly of the
Council of Europe' Back
127 Speech
at Royal United Services Institute, 8 March 1999 Back
128 Treaty
on European Union, Title V, Article 21 Back
129 The
arrangements for the third pillar are rather different, and combine
a certain degree of Community action with intergovernmental action Back
130 QQ
107-109 Back
131 Fourth
Report, Session 1995-96, Western European Union, HC 105,
paras 55 and 56 Back
132 The
running costs of the three assemblies in the last year for which
figures are available were: £3.8 million (for the WEU Assembly),
£1.8 million (for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly) and £1
million (for the OSCE Assembly).The UK's contributions were respectively,
£0.65 million, £0.3 million and £84,000. The annual
cost to the House of the three delegations it sends to these assemblies
runs at around £0.4 million (Source, House of Commons Department
of Finance and Administration and HC Deb., 28 March 2000, cc 101-2w
).The costs for NATO and the OSCE exclude the costs to the host
countries of providing facilities for the biannual (for NATO)
and annual (for the OSCE) plenary sessions of the assemblies-the
November 1998 Session of the NATO Assembly in Edinburgh cost for
example around £0.8 million, which suggests a total annual
cost for the three assemblies of around £10 million, a figure
which may not include all costs, some of which are difficult to
identify. Back
133 In
its report presented to the special session at Lisbon on 21 February
2000, paragraph 23, see also footnote 117. The Brussels Treaty
also requires the delegates to the WEU Assembly to be drawn from
those to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. Back
