Athens, 18 March 2003: More than 200 European national parliamentarians, specialising in security and defence issues, gathered in Athens yesterday for the first day of a round of meetings on “Europe and the new US Security Strategy”. The discussions, which are co-hosted by the Greek EU/WEU-Presidency and the WEU Assembly, were held under pressure of yesterday’s meeting in the Azores and US President Bush’s impending decision on military intervention against Iraq. Many national parliamentarians said the war could only be avoided if Saddam Hussein left the country soon.

Opening the colloquy, the Speaker of the Greek Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis, called on all parties concerned by the Iraq crisis to respect the role of the United Nations. Former Greek Foreign Minister and leader of the Greek Delegation to the WEU Assembly, Theodoros Pangalos, said international terrorism raised new issues, such as who should lead international action in the event of a WMD threat emanating not from a state but from a terrorist group, and how decisions to act should be made, by whom and who should implement them.

President Jan Dirk Blaauw, in his opening remarks, raised the question with his audience as to whether the consequences of the 11 September 2001 attacks had been fully analysed and whether the results of the investigation had been identical on both sides of the Atlantic; also if the US had indeed chosen to act unilaterally and whether Europeans for their part would be ready to take their place in a multi-polar world.

In a debate on the consequences of the new United States’ national security strategy for global security, national parliamentarians from the 28 WEU countries criticised the US Government for putting the survival of post-world war II security institutions at risk. Many speakers were critical of what they described as the new security doctrine’s unilateral approach and its tendency to legitimate what appeared to be an unlimited right of intervention.

In a key note speech, the Greek Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Magriotis, representing the EU/WEU Presidency, said that while the section in the new strategy on prevention contained many elements that would cause concern to Europeans, it also proposed dealing with the roots of terrorism through diplomatic initiatives, economic aid and special support for moderate Muslim countries.


Assembly Rapporteur Lluis Maria de Puig, who presented the new US security doctrine to the participants, said that a number of expressions used in the document gave rise to concern. The strategy document appeared to argue that the US should retain its current military supremacy and to regard the threat posed by WMD as important enough to trigger preventive, unilateral action. Even if there were doubt about the seriousness of a threat, the US Government might feel justified in intervening, including a full use of military force, if it considered it necessary. The Rapporteur said that, in particular, the term “mission” was causing disarray among Europeans: for a superpower to claim to have a “divine mission” could be dangerous, especially if the ambition to lead turned into one of domination.

The Vice-President of the Russian Duma, Vladimir Lukin, said in his speech that it was unacceptable for a country to say that it would only respect the United Nations if the latter voted the right way. Russia had informally asked the UN to support intervention in Georgia but had been refused. Russia had complied with the UN’s decision. It was only natural, he added, to expect others to do the same. He concluded by saying that it was important for the international anti-terrorist, anti-proliferation coalition to stay together.

The mood of the colloquy at the end of its first day was very pessimistic about the prospect of avoiding a war in Iraq.