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| Updated: 04-Nov-2002 | NATO Publications |
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The Western European Union has existed since 1954 and today includes 10 European countries Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. It has a Council and Secretariat formerly located in London and based in Brussels since January 1993, and a Parliamentary Assembly in Paris. The WEU has its origins in the Brussels Treaty of Economic, Social and Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defence of 1948, signed by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. With the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, the exercise of the military responsibilities of the Brussels Treaty Organisation or Western Union was transferred to the North Atlantic Alliance. Under the Paris Agreements of 1954, the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy acceded to the Brussels Treaty and the Organisation was renamed the Western European Union. The latter continued in being in order to fulfil the conditions and tasks laid down in the Paris Agreements. The Western European Union was reactivated in 1984 with a view to developing a "common European defence identity" through cooperation among its members in the security field and strengthening the European pillar of the North Atlantic Alliance. In August 1987, during the Iran-Iraq War, Western European Union experts met in The Hague to consider joint action in the Gulf to ensure freedom of navigation in the oil shipping lanes of the region; and in October 1987 WEU countries met again to coordinate their military presence in the Gulf following attacks on shipping in the area. Meeting in The Hague in October 1987, the Ministerial Council of the Western European Union, made up of Foreign and Defence Ministers of the member countries, adopted a "Platform on European Security Interests" in which they affirmed their determination both to strengthen the European pillar of NATO and to provide an integrated Europe with a security and defence dimension. The Platform defined the Western European Union's relations with NATO and with other organisations, as well as the enlargement of the WEU and the conditions for the further development of its role as a forum for regular discussion of defence and security issues affecting Europe. Following the ratification of the Treaty of Accession signed in November 1988, Portugal and Spain became members of the Western European Union in 1990 in accordance with the decisions taken in 1987 to facilitate WEU enlargement. A further step was taken in November 1989 when the Council decided to create an Institute for Security Studies, based in Paris, with the task of assisting in the development of a European security identity and in the implementation of The Hague Platform. A number of decisions were taken by the European Council at Maastricht on 9-10 December 1991 on the common foreign and security policy of the European Union and by the member states of the Western European Union on the role of the WEU and its relations with the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance (set out in the Maastricht Declarations). These decisions were welcomed by the North Atlantic Council when it met in Ministerial Session on 19 December 1991. These decisions included extending invitations to members of the European Union to accede to the WEU or to seek observer status, as well as invitations to European member states of NATO to become associate members; agreement on the objective of the WEU of building up the organisation in stages, as the defence component of the European Union, and on elaborating and implementing decisions and actions of the Union with defence implications; agreement on the objective of strengthening the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance and the role, responsibilities and contributions of WEU member states in the Alliance; affirmation of the intention of the WEU to act in conformity with positions adopted in the Alliance; the strengthening of the WEU's operational role; and the relocation of the WEU Council and Secretariat from London to Brussels. A number of other proposals were also examined including a new role for the WEU in armaments cooperation. On 19 June 1992, the Foreign and Defence Ministers of WEU member states met near Bonn to strengthen further the role of the WEU and issued the "Petersberg Declaration". This declaration set out, on the basis of the Maastricht decisions, the guidelines for the organisation's future development. WEU member states declared their preparedness to make available military units from the whole spectrum of their conventional armed forces for military tasks under the authority of the WEU. These tasks, the so-called "Petersberg missions", consisted of humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks; and tasks of combat forces in crisis management including peacemaking. In the Petersberg Declaration, WEU members pledged their support for conflict prevention and peacekeeping efforts in cooperation with the CSCE and with the United Nations Security Council. The first application of provisions set out in the Maastricht Treaty with regard to the WEU (Article J.4.2 of the Treaty of European Union) occurred in November 1996. At that time the Council of the European Union adopted a decision requesting the WEU to examine urgently how it could contribute to the EU's humanitarian efforts in support of the refugees and displaced persons in the Great Lakes region in Africa. WEU-EU cooperation was also undertaken in relation to the planning of evacuation operations, supporting African peacekeeping efforts, and mine clearance. Provisions established in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty were subsequently re-examined at the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) in 1996/97. At its Ministerial meeting in Madrid in 1995, the WEU agreed on a specific "WEU contribution to the European Union Intergovernmental Conference of 1996". This document assessed the organisation's development since Maastricht; set forth several options for the future EU-WEU relationship; and listed a number of agreed principles and guidelines to assist the IGC on European defence arrangements. It was formally submitted by the WEU to the Council of the European Union. As a result of the Inter-Governmental Conference on 16 and 17 June 1997 in Amsterdam, EU Heads of State and Government agreed on revisions to the Maastricht Treaty with implications for the future Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Union and EU-WEU relations. In particular, the Petersberg missions, as defined by the WEU at the Ministerial meeting in June 1992, were included in the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Amsterdam Treaty stipulated that the WEU is an integral part of the development of the European Union, providing the latter with access to an operational capability, notably in the context of the Petersberg missions. The WEU should support the EU in framing the defence aspects of the common foreign and security policy; and the EU should, accordingly, foster closer institutional relations with the WEU "with a view to the possibility of the integration of the WEU into the EU, should the European Council so decide". The Amsterdam Treaty also states that the "Union will avail itself of the WEU to elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implications", giving the European Council competence to establish guidelines in respect of the WEU for those matters for which the EU would avail itself of the WEU. In such cases, all EU member states, including those who are not full members of the WEU, would be entitled to participate fully in the tasks in question. In the same vein, the EU Council, in agreement with the institutions of the WEU, would adopt the necessary practical arrangements to allow all EU member states making a contribution to participate fully and on an equal footing in planning and decision-taking in the WEU. The Protocol to Article 17 of the Amsterdam Treaty stated that the EU would draw up, together with the WEU, arrangements for enhanced cooperation between them within a year from the entry into force of the Treaty. The WEU, in its "Declaration on the Role of Western European Union and its Relations with the European Union and with the Atlantic Alliance", adopted by WEU Ministers on 22 July 1997, took note of the parts of the Treaty of Amsterdam pertaining to the WEU. The Declaration also set out the WEU's understanding of its role and relations with the EU as well as with the Atlantic Alliance, describing the WEU as an integral part of the development of the European Union, providing it with access to operational capability, notably in the context of the Petersberg missions, and an essential element of the development of the ESDI within the Alliance, in accordance with the Paris Declaration and with the decisions taken by NATO Ministers in June 1996 in Berlin. Following the Amsterdam and the WEU Declaration of 22 July 1997, further steps were taken in developing WEU-EU relations. In September 1997 the WEU Council introduced measures to harmonise as much as possible the six-monthly presidencies which rotate between members countries in both the WEU and the EU. At their meeting in Erfurt, Germany, in November 1997, EU Ministers endorsed a decision enhancing the operational role of WEU observer countries, in line with the provisions contained in Article 17.3 of the Amsterdam Treaty. In Erfurt Ministers also endorsed a decision concerning the participation modalities of associate members and observers in all WEU operations. After 1991, the WEU developed a framework under which an increasing number of European countries became associated with its activities. In the second WEU Maastricht Declaration of 1991, the WEU invited states which were members of the EU to accede to WEU, on conditions to be agreed in accordance with Article XI of the modified Brussels Treaty, or to become observers. Simultaneously, other European members of NATO were invited to become associate members of WEU "in a way which will give the possibility to participate fully in the activities of WEU". The Petersberg Declaration defined the rights and obligations of those states which are members of the European Union and NATO, as future members, observers or associate members. At the Rome Ministerial meeting on 20 November 1992, WEU members agreed to enlarge the organisation and invited Greece to become its tenth member, subject to parliamentary ratification. On 9 May 1994, at their meeting in Luxembourg, the WEU Council of Ministers issued the "Kirchberg Declaration", according the nine Central and Eastern European countries which had signed "Europe Agreements" with the EU the status of "Associate Partners" 2 (as distinct from the Associate Membership of Iceland, Norway and Turkey). Slovenia became the tenth Associate Partner country in 1996. Greece joined the WEU formally in 1995. Iceland, Norway and Turkey, as member countries of NATO, were granted Associate Member status; and Denmark and Ireland, as members of the European Union, became Observers. Following their accession to the European Union on 1 January 1995, and after completion of parliamentary procedures, Austria, Finland and Sweden also became WEU Observers. On 23 March 1999, following their accession to NATO, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland became Associate Members. These decisions thus created a system of variable geometry with three different levels of membership and affiliation, as well as observer status:
A close working relationship was established between NATO and the WEU (see Implementation of the Petersberg Tasks). In November 2000, the WEU Council of Ministers meeting in Marseilles, welcomed the progress made by the European Union in the field of European security and defence policy and the Atlantic Alliance's support for this process. The Council took a number of decisions relating to the transfer of its operational role to the European Union and arrangements to be put in place for the WEU's residual functions and structures.
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