The Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) meet with National Parliaments to exchange views on their role to legitimise defence and security action and policy, and on the follow up of CSDP missions, their pertinence, integration into EU policy and cost, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Committee on Foreign Affairs

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

Subcommittee on Security and Defence

common security and defence policy (T)

DANJEAN, Arnaud (EPP, FR)

ALBERTINI, Gabriele (EPP, IT)

KIERES, Leon (PL)

VRETTOS, Dinos (EL)

CHASTEL, Olivier (Renew, BE)

Challenges facing the Union's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty: extracts from the meeting

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Gabriele ALBERTINI (EPP, IT), Chair of the AFET Committee, The economic crisis has meant that Member States had to rationalize public expenditure, through heavy cut in national defence budgets' in many case

SOUNDBITE (French), Arnaud DANJEAN (EPP, FR), Chair of SEDE Subcommittee, We can reduce the size of our armed forces if we all take the right decisions together we can improve the quality and efficiency in cost term of our forces.

SOUNDBITE (French), Arnaud DANJEAN (EPP, FR), Chair of SEDE Subcommittee, As we all know defence cooperation is a difficult subject because it impinges on fundamental aspects of sovereignty and independence and yet it can bring with it significant advantages, we can cooperate in order to achieve a critical mass , improve the effectiveness of our actions through economies of scale, we can reduce cost by sharing existing European capacities whether it is at EU level, or bilaterally or regionally.

SOUNDBITE (French), Olivier CHASTEL, on behalf of Catherine ASHTON, The Treatry of Lisbon introduces Member States are improving their capacity to support the ESDP but they are also putting place permanent strategic cooperation allowing those MS who ant to intensify their defence cooperation to organise themselves under the EU.

SOUNDBITE (French), Olivier CHASTEL, on behalf of Catherine ASHTON, Europe's capacity to act makes significant contribution to the security of its citizens and a promotion of peace and the rule of law as part of multilateral operations. We face challenges in Afghanistan and Somalia n, challenges that are enormous in their scale.

SOUNDBITE (French), Olivier CHASTEL, on behalf of Catherine ASHTON, We have to use the whole panoply of tools at our disposal, diplomacy development, economic trade, military and civilian deployments. the EU has all of theses instruments under the Treaty of Lisbon and the Treaty permits to use these instruments in a coordinated fashion.

SOUNDBITE (French), Olivier CHASTEL, on behalf of Catherine ASHTON, Working with our partners has always been at the heart of Europe's foreign action it has been a pillar of effective multilateralism for many years; Partnership and coordination with other actors is partly what we do everywhere in the world and if successful it can generate added value through complementary action pulling resources sending a stringer signal in the context of a crisis.

SOUNDBITE (French), Arnaud DANJEAN (EPP, FR), Chair of SEDE Subcommittee, It is up to You National Parliament, and European Parliaments to decide what form this inter-parliamentary cooperation should take , pursuing protocol 1of the Treaty.

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Leon KIERES, Polish Senate, May I express Poland's support for the ideas expressed by Mr Chastel. Poland believes in an open inclusive approach and we therefore set great store by the notion that it is the will of an individual country that should be at the heart of the implementation of these actions on the basis of solidarity and cooperation.

SOUNDBITE (Greek), Dinos VRETTOS, Hellenic Parliament&apos;s defense and foreign affairs Committee, I believe that we need to approach issues relating to CSDP in a consistent and coordinated way; we need to have some kind of interparliamentary body, in which National and European Parliament would be represented, this is indispensable. Essential.