RESOLUTIONS

1. Enlargement of the Union to the East & relations with the C.I.S.

The Congress of the UEF, meeting in Bocholt on 21/23rd October 1994

- deeply concerned about the threats to peace and security of the whole of Europe, following the disintegration of the Soviet empire, and particularly about the growth of extreme nationalism, tension between states and actual armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia and parts of the Commonwealth of Independent States;

- understanding that, to guarantee their security and ensure economic progress many of the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe want to join NATO and the European Union as soon as possible;

- noting, however, that NATO while proposing military and political cooperation through its Partnership for Peace, is unwilling to extend security guarantees eastwards for fear of alienating the Russians, and that it will be many years before most of the new democracies will be economically capable of accepting the full obligations of EU membership;

nevertheless believes that steps to safeguarding peace and prosperity throughout Europe are urgent, and that peace will never be permanently achieved, except by pooling sovereignties of states through supranational integration modelled on the European Union. To make rapid progress towards this goal the UEF, therefore calls upon the member states of the European Union to offer to applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe full political membership of the Union, including that of its security arm the Western European Union, while allowing them appropriately lengthy periods for economic adaptation after entry;

furthermore, to allay Russian fears and those of their CIS neighbours of isolation from the rest of Europe, the European Union should draw on its origins, when the European Coal and Steel Community, set up in 1951, removed the threat of conflict between its members by transferring control over these basic industries to supranational institutions. The UEF, therefore, urges the European Union to offer the CIS to set up jointly a supranational Eurasian Energy and Environment Agency to control the management and development of all energy resources and to protect and improve the common environment. This could then lead, as in the case of the European Community, to greater economic and political cooperation and ultimate interdependence between the European Union and the CIS,; and thus remove the dangers of conflict and chaos that threaten our continent today.

2. The European Union and the United Nations

The Congress of the UEF in Bocholt, on 21-23rd October 1994, approves the recommendations contained in the following report submitted to the Federal Committee of the UEF:

The Foreign and Security Commission of the UEF met in Brussels on 18th December 1993 to discuss recommendations for UEF policies on the European Union's role in relation to the United Nations Organisation. Since 1991 our Commission has been putting forward two specific proposals on this subject:

1. To control nuclear proliferation and threats of future nuclear conflicts the UN should establish a World Security Authority with powers aimed principally at deterring any country from using or threatening the use of nuclear weapons. To this end existing nuclear powers should be urged to place their nuclear weapons at the service of and under the ultimate control of the proposed World Authority.

2. That the UN Security Council be reformed with a view to allocating permanent seats to regional groupings of member states and thus encourage the development of regional federations. The right of veto grated to permanent members should be replaced by a system of weighted majority voting amongst them.

The above proposals are as relevant now as they were when originally proposed by us, but may take some considerable time before they can be fully implemented. In the meantime new dangers of nuclear proliferation, the growth of aggressive nationalism and ethnic conflicts within and between states have emerged after the collapse of communism and the soviet empire. We urgently need to safeguard the European Union by making a concerted contribution to peace and stability throughout Europe and by playing an active part in support of UN peace-keeping and peace-making responsibilities.

Until full political is achieved with a European Government exclusively responsible for the Union's foreign and security policy, interim measures in support of common action should be adopted by the Union. Thus, under the Maastricht Treaty, members should undertake to adopt "common positions" and "joint action" on all matters concerning the role of the Union in international organisations such as the UN or the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the provision of military forces in implementing policies adopted by these organisations. To enable all member countries of the Union to show solidarity and carry out these obligations, national constraints on the use of military forces beyond the Union's borders should be removed. To this end enabling constitutional changes in neutral countries and in Germany would be welcomed.

Should earlier reform of the United Nations take place, the European Union will put forward proposals on the content of that reform according to the rules established by the Maastricht Treaty.

The process of democratisation requires the creation of a World Parliament.

The first stage of this process is the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, as demanded by the European Parliament in the resolution approved on 8 February 1994.