Paris, 5 June - The WEU Assembly has said that national parliaments should have a say in any decision to send troops on military missions abroad.

A report entitled “Parliamentary scrutiny of external operations” said that there was “a major flaw that hampers the work of parliamentarians. (…) Each national parliament is alone with its decision, which quite naturally is likely to be influenced by domestic policy constraints. At European and international summits, government decision-making is freer and more efficient”. It was up to parliaments to call for the Assembly to be reinforced as an interparliamentary forum to monitor European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the report added.

The report, prepared for the Parliamentary and Public Relations Committee by Emelina Fernández Soriano (Spain, Socialist Group), said the WEU parliaments should streamline their procedures to keep  pace with decision-making internationally and increase resources to permit them to participate more effectively in external security and defence policy. According to the report, which was adopted unanimously on Monday, parliaments should demand that governments inform them immediately of any external operations they were planning so that they were not reduced to giving approval after the event.

During her presentation, Mrs Soriano stressed the constitutional differences in the role of national parliaments across the WEU. “Some countries require prior agreement from parliaments before they send defence missions abroad”, she said, adding that others had no parliamentary scrutiny and sometimes not even the requirement for parliaments to be informed. 

Mrs Soriano also underscored the increasing influence of the media over public opinion on defence issues, and the role that open debate could play in fostering public understanding of government initiatives.

Speaking for the German WEU/EU Presidency, Christian Schmidt, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Defence Ministry, earlier stressed the importance of giving parliaments the means of exercising fully and rapidly their rights over the deployment of troops abroad.