MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 47 OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE

On "THE NECESSITY TO CREATE A MILITARY AND CIVIL EUROPEAN CORPS FOR PEACE-KEEPING AND PEACE-MAKING"

tabled by Olivier Dupuis, Gianfranco Dell'Alba and Jean-François Hory on behalf of the ERA group

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the recent declarations of British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in the occasion of the European Summit in Portschach on 24 and 25 October and in Edinburgh on 13 November this year, underlining the necessity to re-launch a common European defence policy;

- having regard to the indications of the defence ministers of the 15, published on 5 November this year on the outcome of their informal meeting in Vienna;

- having regard to the declarations of President Chirac in the occasion of reception of Queen Elisabeth II in Paris on 11 November 1998;

- having regard to the similar declarations of the Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana;

- having regard to the discussions of the Council of WEU on 16 and 17 November this year;

- having regard to the discussion of the European Council of Heads of States and Governments on 11 and 12 December 1998 in Vienna;

A. Considering that the wars of aggression, internal conflicts and humanitarian crises have multiplied in Europe as well as in the rest of the world during the last years;

B. Considering that the Union itself has been unable to deal with these situations of war or serious crisis, except for doing so from strictly humanitarian viewpoint, leaving the responsibility of assuming the political and financial costs of a direct intervention on some Member States and third countries;

C. Regretting the fact that still today the European Union is not able to assume the role that it should have in the conflicts and in the crises that are under way, and particularly in Kosovo and Central Africa;

D. Considering that the Union, in the framework of strengthening the EPCS, cannot renounce an instrument enabling it to intervene effectively and rapidly in peace-keeping and peace-making;

E. Considering that the Member States of the Union have the experience, financial and human resources, both military and civil, necessary for the creation of European corps charged to undertake the operations of type called Petersberg (peace-keeping and peace-making) and humanitarian operations;

F. Considering that the European Parliament repeatedly expressed itself, particularly through the reports Tindemans (A4-0162/97) and Fassa (A4-0021/97), in favour of creation of such European corps;

G. Emphasising that the prospective of future enlargement of the Union makes the necessity and urgency to reform and strengthen the actual foreign and common security policy even more insistent;

1. Requests the Member States to decide about the creation, on a non-national basis, of European corps of 50.000 men and women, with military and civil units charged to undertake, under the decision of the Council and the Parliament and under the authority of one Vice-President of the Commission, the peace-keeping and peace-making operations and humanitarian operations;

2. Requests the Council and the Commission, in the framework of their competencies, to draft quickly a project in this sense;

3. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Parliaments of the Member States, the Council and the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU.