Western European Union (Hansard, 28 June 1988)

HC Deb 28 June 1988 vol 136 c190W 190W

§ Mr. Speed
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will state his policy priorities during his forthcoming year of presidency of the Western European Union Council of Ministers.

§ Mr. Mellor
We shall have four main priorities for our presidency of the WEU. They are:

— to elaborate the commitments in the WEU platform in order to make practical contributions to the common defence;

— to use the WEU as a forum for frank discussion of key European security issues;

— to develop the WEU as a forum for co-ordinating European approaches to out of area issues;

— to secure a satisfactory outcome to the enlargement negotiations with Spain and Portugal.