Western European Union - President, Eurofor, Participating States

An organization of 10 W European nations, founded in 1954 to co-ordinate defence and other policies, replacing the defunct European Defence Community, and reactivated in the 1980s; its members are Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. It contains a Council of Ministers, a representative assembly in the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, and a Standing Armaments Committee which works in co-operation with NATO. Several E European countries are linked to it under the heading of Associate Partners. Its headquarters is in Brussels.

The Western European Union (WEU) is a partially dormant European defence and security organization, established on the basis of the Treaty of Brussels of 1948 with the accession of West Germany and Italy in 1954. As a result of the failure of the European Defence Community on October 23, 1954 the WEU was established with the incorporation of the then West Germany and Italy. Its two stated aims were:

to afford assistance to each other in resisting any policy of aggression to promote unity and to encourage the progressive integration of Europe

The WEU is led by a Council of Ministers, assisted by a Permanent Representatives Council on ambassadorial level. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council (composed of the delegations of the member states to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), is fearful for its future existence, and has been lobbying for itself to be recognised as the "European Security and Defence Assembly".

Some of the moves that have taken place and indicate the partial merger of the WEU into the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU have been the following:

On November 20, 1999, Javier Solana, who is the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the EU, was also appointed Secretary-General of the WEU. The Petersberg tasks, declared by the WEU in 1992, were incorporated in 1997 into the treaty of Amsterdam of the EU, forming the basis of the European Security and Defence Policy which frames a common policy to deal with humanitarian and rescue, peacekeeping and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) and European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC), both established to function under the EU's CFSP pillar, are replacements to the Western European Union Institute for Security Studies and the Western Union Satellite Centre which had been established to function in connection to the WEU. however, as of 2004 the WEU is still alive and much European military planning takes place within its constituent cells.

President

The WEU has a rotating 6 month presidency. When the President of the Council of the EU belongs to a country that is also a member of the WEU then that member is also the President of the WEU, and when a non member heads the EU a different member state takes over the presidency.

Eurofor

Eurofor (European Operational Rapid Force) is a task force of the Western European Union that became operational in June 1998.

Participating States

The Western European Union has 10 member countries, 6 associate member countries, 5 observer countries and 7 associate partner countries. They are as follows:

Member countries: (modified Brussels Treaty - 1954) All of them being members of both NATO and the European Union.  France  Germany  Italy  United Kingdom  Belgium  Netherlands  Luxembourg  Portugal (March 27, 1990)  Spain (March 27, 1990)  Greece (1995) Observer countries: (Rome - 1992) Observer countries are members of the European Union, but not of NATO.

Associate member countries: (Rome - 1992) Associate membership was created to include the European countries that were members of NATO but not of the European Union.  Turkey  Norway  Iceland  Poland (1999)  Czech Republic (1999)  Hungary (1999) Associate partner countries: (Kirchberg - 1994) Countries that were part of neither NATO nor of the EU.