HC Deb 01 February 1957 vol 563 cc232-3W
Mr. D. Jones

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the representatives of Italy and the German Federal Republic voted in favour of applying the Resolution, taken by the Brussels Treaty Council in December, 1950, to the newly-created organisation of Western European Union, when the matter came before the Council of Western European Union for decision.

Mr. Ian Harvey

The Brussels Treaty Organisation Resolution of 20th December, 1950, was not endorsed as such by Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany. The structure of Western European Union was however laid down in the London and Paris Agreements of 1954 to which those two Governments were parties.

Mr. D. Jones

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will instruct his representative to the Council of Western European Union to impress upon the Council that it is the collective responsibility of that body and not the responsibility of individual nations within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to ensure that the obligations of Article 5 of the Brussels Treaty are fulfilled, seeing that it goes further in guaranteeing automatic assistance against aggression than the provisions of Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty.

Mr. Ian Harvey

No. It is not the collective responsibility of the Western European Union Council but of the Governments who have chosen to use the machinery of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation for the fulfilment of their mutual defence obligations.

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