Paris, 8 November 2001: At a parliamentary conference in Brussels, EU governments received an important political message from delegations of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and European Affairs Committees of the national parliaments of the 15 EU member states, representatives of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and members of the Assembly of WEU who discussed solutions to overcome the lack of collective parliamentary scrutiny of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). 
 
In a clear message to the EU summit of Laeken (12-14 December 2001) parliamentarians meeting on 7 November 2001 at the invitation of both Chambers of the Belgian Parliament and in the framework of the Belgian EU/WEU-Presidency adopted a motion for a declaration tabled by the Delegation of the German Bundestag calling on: 
 
“Heads of State and Government … to extend the agenda of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to include deepening integration in the area of foreign and security policy … (which) … must … be subject to common parliamentary scrutiny involving both the national parliaments and the European Parliament.” 
 
The EU parliamentarians then announced to EU governments that “national parliaments, the European Parliament and the Assembly of WEU will submit proposals on parliamentary scrutiny of the ESDP to the Convention responsible for preparing EU-reforms”. 
 
“The declaration is a strong message to EU governments who were reluctant to acknowledge the existence of a parliamentary deficit under the ESDP that EU parliaments will no longer allow governments to evade the issue of collective parliamentary scrutiny in their ESDP activities”, said the President of the Assembly, Klaus Bühler, MdB. “I am particularly satisfied that the declaration is the result of a real joint effort by national parliaments, the European Parliament and the Assembly of WEU.” 
 
Download the declaration on our web-site at: http://assembly.weu.int