President Masseret: Security and defence policy essential for Europe’s future - scrutiny by interparliamentary forum?
Paris, 2 June 2006: Assembly President Jean-Pierre Masseret (France, Socialist Group), speaking at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments, held in Tallinn on 31 May 2006, on “Bridge-building through Parliamentary Diplomacy” and “The Role of Parliaments in promoting democracy”, put forward his views on how to make the European public more aware of security and defence issues. He said that it was urgent and essential for elected representatives to draw attention to the fact that Europe’s future was at stake and that the part it was destined to play depended on it having a security and defence policy subject to proper scrutiny by national parliaments and by the European Parliament. (read the President's
speech (translation); see video (French only):
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President Masseret addressing the European Conference of Presidents of
Parliaments.“Europe needs a security and defence policy. There can be no
security and defence policy without parliamentary scrutiny and the input
of our national parliaments and the European Parliament on these basic issues
The European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments meets every two years and is organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It brings together the Speakers from all the member states’ parliaments and the European Parliament.
“The question is whether, in tomorrow’s world, there will be a Europe – one that is respected and worthy of respect”, said President Masseret, who went on to add: “There is an absolute need to come up with a security and defence policy that takes account of our nations’ sovereignty. However, increasingly this is becoming a matter for all of us, for Europe”.
The President explained that “It is of course national parliaments which are first and foremost involved in security and defence matters. It is they that vote on defence spending and are often consulted when troops are deployed to foreign theatres of operations. However, as a long-serving parliamentarian, I have noticed that security and defence questions are often appropriated by governments and that parliamentarians are not really allowed their proper say as the representatives of the people”.
He therefore called upon his fellow colleagues “to come together to create an interparliamentary forum within Europe enabling us to examine security and defence matters – because it is part of our duty to our constituents to oversee, scrutinise and carry forward such matters”.
The President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, and Maret Maripuu,
Vice-President of the Estonian Parliament and Leader of the Estonian Delegation to the Assembly
President Masseret pointed out also that it was not necessary to reinvent this kind of “interparliamentary forum”. The Assembly he presided over could be developed for that purpose. He was not particularly attempting to promote that Assembly but the idea of “an interparliamentary forum within Europe, dedicated to security and defence matters, that will, don’t forget, shape the future for our fellow citizens”.
“Do we want Europe or not?” he asked. “We cannot have it without a security and defence policy and there can be no security and defence policy without parliamentary scrutiny and the input of our national parliaments and the European Parliament on these basic issues”, he concluded.
