Paris, 3 July 2001. - The Belgian Parliament, in a joint session of both houses, adopted a resolution crucial to the EU-wide debate on the parliamentary dimension of the ESDP.
 
A few days before the beginning of the Belgian EU/WEU Presidency, the Parliament of a founding member of WEU as well as the EU “urges the organisation of a … collective … transnational parliamentary scrutiny … to enable national parliamentarians to form  a common view on the needs of the ESDP in association with the European Parliament”. The resolution, voted with the support of government and opposition parties, calls for the creation of an ad hoc Security and Defence Assembly in the EU. This European Assembly would comprise members of the national parliaments of EU members states as well as members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.   
 
The President of the WEU Assembly – the interim European Security and Defence Assembly – Klaus Bühler, MdB, welcomed the initiative of the Belgian Parliament noting that “the Belgian Parliament has given the Belgian EU Presidency and the President of the EU Council, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, the clear task of hammering out a solution to the ESDP parliamentary deficit and discussing prior to the Laeken European Council the best form of collective representation of national parliaments at EU level within all EU bodies. Following on from similar initiatives taken by the Dutch Presidency earlier this year, this is certainly another major step forward in the search for a pragmatic solution to the present lack of parliamentary oversight of intergovernmental cooperation on security and defence matters”.   
 
Mr Bühler also called for an inclusive approach to parliamentary scrutiny which should involve parliamentarians from non-EU European NATO member states and EU applicant countries.