Paris, 23 June 2006 – Hendrik Daems, Chairman of the External Relations Committee of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, on Wednesday spoke out in favour of finding ways of continuing at EU level the working methods and resources that made the endeavours of the WEU Assembly so widely appreciated.

Addressing the Assembly on behalf of Herman de Croo, the Speaker of the Belgian Parliament, Mr Daems enumerated these as: the joint preparation of detailed reports on all aspects of European security and defence policy, appropriate rules for reaching common viewpoints and a direct link with the European executive.

Mr Daems felt that whilst the European Parliament’s competences in security policy were still in their infancy, they were set to widen in the longer term, as part of a process for creating a subsidiary instrument permitting all parliaments concerned with the ESDP – national parliaments and the European Parliament – to discharge the scrutiny function that rightly belonged to them.

However, he added that as long as the structures needed to continue the Assembly’s work did not exist at EU level, WEU Assembly members must go on working on the current legal basis and should receive the necessary funds to do so. He complimented them on the admirable way they had dealt with the long period of transition – the Assembly had continued to adopt reports and recommendations regarded as excellent by those closely involved in European security and defence matters.