HL Deb 04 April 1985 vol 462 cc343-4

11.19 a.m.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the proposal, made by the German Foreign Minister to the Ministerial meeting of Western European Union (WEU) in Rome last year, for a European Research Institute for Security Policy under WEU, and what their attitude is to this proposal.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young)

My Lords, yes. We stand ready to help with the investigation of work undertaken by existing research institutes in WEU member countries in the field of European security which was agreed by the WEU Permanent Council after discussion of Herr Genscher's proposal.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, can the Government confirm that what Herr Genscher proposed was a new single European research institute dealing with security matters? Would it not be a rather obvious trap for our Government and other governments to fall into if they simply limited their response to that to making it easy for the existing national research organisations—Chatham House here, and so on—to meet rather more frequently than they do at the moment? Is not what is needed a European mixed united study team to get to grips with these topics?

Baroness Young

My Lords, a new research institute, working in the same field as WEU but independent of it, would need careful dovetailing of its work with that of WEU itself to avoid wasteful overlap and duplication. However, I can confirm that there is no intention by WEU to create a caucus within the alliance and we recognise the importance of the contribution made to NATO by the non-WEU allies.

Lord Gladwyn

My Lords, is it a fact that the American administration has recently been expressing some concern about the prospects of co-operation between the Western European members of the North Atlantic alliance?

Baroness Young

My Lords, no approaches of the kind that have been suggested in the press have been received from the Americans in relation to the WEU Bonn Ministerial session.

Lord Boston of Faversham

My Lords, can the Minister say anything more about the terms of reference of this initiative? Can she say whether it would serve not only the WEU itself but the other Western European defence organisations? Does she not agree that there is a need for greater co-ordination of and co-operation on the Western defence effort? Has any estimate been made of the cost of this?

Baroness Young

My Lords, on the general point, as the noble Lord will be aware, the renewed and reactivated WEU will provide a valuable forum for foreign and defence Ministers to hold joint debate about European defence and security matters. We believe that greater co-operation in this field will improve the European contribution to the alliance and give political impetus to work in other fora.