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20 years ago, Petersberg, and its missions

(BRUSSELS2) It was in this month of June 1992, on the 19th to be exact, on the heights of Bonn, in a hotel which is also the residence of the guests, that the government of the recently reunified Federal Republic of Germany received its European counterparts of the WEU - the Western European Union.

The European leaders, jostled by the war situation in the former Yugoslavia and pilloried in their public opinion for their inaction, decided to adopt, in the wake of the Treaty of Maastricht, concluded six months earlier (in December 1991), a autonomous action doctrine for peacekeeping. The Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defense of Western European Union (WEU) thus affirm their intention to make military means available to the organization if necessary, in peacekeeping operations under the political authority of the CSCE or the UN.

These units could be used for humanitarian missions or evacuation of nationals; peacekeeping missions; combat force missions for crisis management, including peace-making operations is thus specified in addition to the contribution to common defense within the framework of the application of the solidarity clauses - whether it comes from Article 5 of the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance or the Treaty of Brussels ( WEU) - .

This definition of the Petersberg missions will then be taken up and integrated into the Treaty of Amsterdam (article J.7), then of Nice (article 17) and finally of Lisbon (article 42 TEU) by being slightly extended to other missions. The first application of this commitment will be WEU's contribution to the embargo operations against Serbia and Montenegro decided by the UN in July.

Operational measures

This declaration is accompanied by a series of operational and organizational measures aimed more generally at strengthening the "defence" pillar of Europeans within WEU.

All WEU Member States thus agree to appoint “soon the military units and staffs which they would be ready to make available to WEU for its various possible missions”. And to also organize the training of appropriate capabilities which will enable the land, sea or air deployment of WEU military units”.

A planning cell was set up on 1 October 1992 in Brussels within the Council responsible for preparing contingency plans for the employment of forces under the aegis of WEU, preparing recommendations for the necessary arrangements of command, the conduct of signals operations, including the standing instructions for the headquarters which might be chosen, to draw up an up-to-date inventory of the forces and groups of forces likely to be assigned to WEU for operations specific. It is neither more nor less an embryo of General Staff. 20 years later, we are not quite there yet! Or rather the instrument exists but it is left fallow...

Organizational measures

It is also decided that the Chiefs of Defense Staff would meet twice a year before the ordinary Councils of Ministers, and on an ad hoc basis whenever necessary. Similarly, certain functions of the Eurogroup (*) could be transferred to WEU. The inauguration of the WEU Satellite Experimental Center in Torrejon is confirmed. A dialogue with the Maghreb countries has been initiated with the objective of security in the Mediterranean,

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

(*) The Eurogroup does not then designate the finance ministers of the Euro Zone but the European defense ministers within the Atlantic Alliance… Yes! The names remain but change function...

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Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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