Talk:Western European Union

Opening intro and merge

The opening paragraph looks rather alarmist for an organisation that in reality is generally believed to be defunct and irrelevant. "...an obvious remilitarisation of Europe"? "...a military takeover"? For NPOV, any conspiracy theories about the WEU ought to be later on in the article if at all, rather than forming the introduction.

I couldn't agree more. There is a lot of conspiracy theory amongst Javier Solana as the antichrist about the WEU and some 10 horn prophecy. I removed the first paragraph, and will sniff around the article a bit more. I have removed the neutrality notice but will put it back on if i think the article is still not neutral. --SqueakBox 03:22, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

User:Cumbey wrote the controversial bits, and I have now reverted it; it was some of her worst writing; shame noone else spotted and reverted, which is what our friend 131.111.193.22should have done. Well spotted! --SqueakBox 03:33, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

No reason to merge the treatu of Brussels with the WEU in my opinion, two different topics heavy enough to get own articles. Theodore W. 19:14, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Theodore Itake 15:33, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I withdraw my merge suggestion, then, and await with pleasure some robust and accurate content in both separate articles from Theodore W. and Itake. If the articles are not improved after a month or two, justifying their separate existence, I'll just merge them anyway. --Wetman 02:47, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

If you gentlemen wish, I can redirect any questions to the appropriate authorities. This article is seriously out of date, but to cut to the chase, WEU is now a very small cadre principally maintaining a legal power to ensure the mutual defence of Western Europe, and providing the only official forum for Parliamentary Defence and Foreign Affairs Committes of the National Parliaments at national parliamentary level. Thoughts to replace this with powers in the Treaty of Lisbon were discovered to be misguided, and so there is every possibility it may continue for some time. Contact rahere at skynet dot be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.65.130.104 (talk) 07:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Distracting blank spaces

Formatting that encases the framed table of contents in text, in just the way a framed map or image is enclosed within the text, is now available: {{TOCleft}} in the HTML does the job.

Blank space opposite the ToC, besides being unsightly and distracting, suggests that there is a major break in the continuity of the text, which may not be the case. Blanks in page layout are voids and they have meanings to the experienced reader. The space betweeen paragraphs marks a brief pause between separate blocks of thought. A deeper space, in a well-printed text, signifies a more complete shift in thought: note the spaces that separate sub-headings in Wikipedia articles.

A handful of thoughtless and aggressive Wikipedians revert the "TOCleft" format at will. A particularly aggressive de-formatter is User:Ed g2s

The reader may want to compare versions at the Page history. --Wetman 19:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Extinct

I think this organisation is now defunct. I will check. Chelsea Tory 12:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, still active: http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/agencija/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=2&NrArticle=48094&NrIssue=223&NrSection=10 It's really time they merged it into the European Union, though. —Nightstallion (?) 21:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

For the record, the reason it was not integrated at that time was that the French National Referendum which rejected their ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht left the European Union without any legal self-defence authority other than that enacted in WEU in Article 5 of the 1955 Treaty of Brussels. It was not therefore possible to close WEU until a replacement Treaty, the Treaty of Lisbon, was fully ratified, and once that had happened, the UK, desperate to save every penny possible in public bodies expenditure in the wake of the 2008 recession, denounced the Treaty immediately.

Previously to that, certain subsidiary bodies remained in WEU's care, pending the transfer of their competences and practices and, in many instances, staff, to various corresponding EU Agencies. Rahere — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.174.34 (talk) 21:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Denmark

The part of the article dealing with the Observer countries says "Observer countries are members of the European Union, but not of NATO.". Well unfortunately this is wrong because Denmark is in NATO (and indeed a founding member), so that will have to be reworded, or Denmark put into a different category or something. --Hibernian 12:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:European Defence Agency logo.svg

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BetacommandBot 09:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Resolved. Rahere (former senior WEU staffer). I note, however, that the logo has now disappeared. Should I discover copies of the WEAG/WEAO insignia in my archives, I will post them: they are different from this.

Incoherency of map and list of countries

I've noted that the map of the WEU countries is not adequate to the list of countries on bottom of the article. I don't know what is the present state of the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwys0 (talk • contribs) 02:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

In what manner is the map inadequate? All countries listed are shaded on the map, each country is shaded the appropriate color. Khajidha (talk) 17:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Unless you meant the navbox at the end of the article, THAT is seriously messed up. Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix that. Khajidha (talk) 14:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Figured it out and fixed it. Khajidha (talk) 00:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

France and NATO

It is incorrect to say that all the member countries were members of NATO since France left NATO in 1959. I suggest modifying it to: "All Member Countries were both member states of the European Union and NATO at the time of their accession to the treaty." 143.229.188.103 (talk) 05:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

France has never left NATO entirely. It did, however, withdraw from the military command structures of NATO. Sounds silly, but that is what they did. --Khajidha (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Organization

The organization of sections in this article seems weird. I would expect the section "Participating states" and "Organization" to be incorporated into one section (or at least successive sections) while the abolition section would seem to be the obvious place to end the article. Perhaps a short section on how the WEU influenced later developments in the EU and/or NATO. Given that this group will soon be defunct, this is a good time to consider rewriting the article. --Khajidha (talk) 15:11, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I am available for reference if needed, as the accountant who put the key under the door. rahere mail com, usual separators. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.213.9.109 (talk) 14:56, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Operational Activity 1993-2001

As a former senior WEU staffer, I find it regrettable you make little or no mention of WEU's operational activity in the years 1993-2001. You will find details on WEU's website weu.int, which is still up.

In practice, WEU's Council also played a strategic role designing and implementing the diplomatic and defence planning of Western Europe, and in particular led the accession of the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, from the Ministerial Meeting at the Egmont Palace in Brussels on 23-5 April 1990, which agreed the principal of their future accession, to their initial welcome as partner states and then accession as full member states, allowing them to gain the background and experience necessary to join NATO and the EU.

One aspect of the Assembly that you may perhaps underestimate is that it considered until the very end that its function as the sole forum for the Defence and Foreign Affairs Select Committees of the primary National Parliaments (indeed, the only place the Parliaments ever came together in their own voice) should continue after 2011. This has not happened in practice, but as several European States do not accept the full plenipotentiarity of Europe over their national legislatures, I think you must reflect the presence of the lacuna in the European democratic structures. At the time that I write this, the European Court has decided the UK's rider to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, whereby it precludes legal pursuit on these grounds against its decisions as a plenipotentiary power, has lapsed, in terms which suggest all European Legislation may have primacy over the UK legislature. As the vast bulk of the UK population finds that unacceptable, according to population censuses, and a clear majority currently wishes to leave the Union, this abrogation of the UK's National Plenipotentiarity may exacerbate the debate: several motions are in preparation in the UK Parliament to advance the Secession Referendum from 2017, which the UK's Prime Minister David Cameron has currently committed to, to 2014. At the same time, Europe considers that the secession of the UK would be disastrous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.121.174.34 (talk) 21:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Flags

It should be noted that the 1949 flag was that of the precursor body, the Western Union Defence Organisation (nothing to do with the Western Union finance house, in passing). Although staff and practices of WEDO passed into WEU in 1955, the 1949 flag shown did not (WEU only being formed from WEDO in 1955), and the need for one was relatively immaterial until WEU acquired an opeartional competence in 1993. A number of project designs were prepared by the in-house public relations section, with the help of other staff (I provided the software and support), and were discussed in-house. The 1993 version was selected as a balance between the concepts of the European flag and those of a laurel wreath reflecting WEU's more military nature. As further Nations joined, their stars were added, and the size of the stars regularised on aesthetic grounds.

I have not removed the 1949 version because although it does not strictly-speaking belong to WEU, it does belong to its most significant ancestor. If WEDO were to be given its own meme, then it should be moved there, but until then, it is best here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.27.232.236 (talk) 18:16, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

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To facilitate future research, the WEU Archives are now in the UK State Archives at Kew, although I would not be surprised were that to change again once the UK leaves the EU. My e-mail cited above is now rahere at mail dot com. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.251.182.189 (talk) 08:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

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NPOV

Whoever's rewritten this is not Neutral. I was Head of Finance of WEU, and MAPE within it.

What he says of Kosovo is not true. When the Ponzi banking crash destroyed the Albanian economy in 1997, the initiative started in the UN, who delegated it to NATO. Because it was in the European sphere of influence, it was further delegated to WEU, where it landed hard on my desk, as the Crisis Team's economist. I'd been trained by Eddie George and Mervyn King, future governors of the Bank of England, in 1977, and the next year spotted the flaw in the economics of the Iron Curtain which destroyed it. I was generally recognised as a very competent pair of hands, and was recognised as such by Peter Carrington, then Head of Bilderberg, when he introduced me to the Heads of State in the WEU 50th Anniversary Reception, calling me by my first name from the shadows, where I was engaged in collecting expense claims in my "day job" as HQ Accountant. Our paths had crossed early in my career, in Cadbury Schweppes, when a personal initiative of mine restored his credibility, allowing him to bounce straight back from the Falklands fiasco which caused his resignation as Foreign Minister: it proved to be a war-winner.

When Serbia attacked Kosovo, it used Catholic identity as a cover for an attempt to pursue its agenda of recovering its old hegemony, much as Russia is doing with Ukraine. The simple facts were that Tito was the only thing holding the Balkans together, and when he died, Yugoslavia fell apart. Learning from the failed history of Balkanisation to leave itself out of its neighbours problems, Europe watched as it degenerated, growing increasingly alarmed at the knock-on effects. However, when the Albanian economy was devastated by a Ponzi scheme which wiped out the entire banking system, the UN decided action was needed, as I said. Although very quick action restored internal confidence within hours, at a ridiculously low cost ($3000 from my own pocket - I did of course recover it!), the internal stability was another matter, so a Multinational Albanian Police element was formed, retraining the local police to root out the corruption, an Albanian issue, not ours. When the mission was complete, we handed it back to the UN. I was left with a decision on what to do with the force landrovers, and as they were in the care of the sole remaining local staffer, when she was taken on by them, I told her to hand them over to our commissioning body: apparently a new staffer arriving in a family escort of a dozen police vehicles was a new one in their experience, and a most welcome one.

Returning to Kosovo. The Serbian attack on a muslim community was taken very badly at a personal level by the Albanian population, and many of those made rootless in the crash went to help their fellow-muslim neighbours. Greece, itself an economic basket case at the time, grew concerned at the risk of a wave of Kosovo refugees landing on Albania, which was in no fit state to cope, and would certainly have fallen, landing millions on Greece, which would likewise have collapsed. Italy would likely have been on the receiving end of the lot, and as WEU had its hands full with Albania, invoked NATO's Article 5. It was not as described here, whoever wrote this is a fabulist, rewriting the history for their own ends. WEU's archives are in the UK National Archives in Kew, but probably not authorised for release before 2027, possibly later.

Turning to the reactive description of the rationale for WEU's demise, he could not be more wrong. WEU was never intended to be eternal, a private warning in 1992 from an old colleague when we served as Officer Cadets in the same TAVR OTC unit in the mid-70s made that very clear. In fact, it lasted far longer than expected, the plug only being pulled in 2010 by David Cameron, for reasons which had nothing to do with functionality: he was desperately trying to save every penny possible in the wake of the 2008 economjc crash. The EU didn't even have a competent foreign service team, and only scrabbled one together by borrowing staff from National Foreign Offices, as situation which continues to this day, creating a lack of long-term vision which has become devastating for the EU for the reasons ascribed to WEU. Where we, and more particularly I, had correctly anticipated the fall of the Iron Curtain, they did not anticipate the Russian incursion, and far more critically, are not aware of the probable consequence of the sanctions on aviation: it is very likely to cause the implosion of the Federation, as the remaining links, road and rail, are impossibly weak and exposed.

Be that as it may, I do not intend to vaunt myself. Instead, I'll refer you to Rory Stewart, a senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, who knows me well: he'll place me immediately if you tell him I'm Dana's chum in the Savile Club some five years ago.

The original author was a recognised WEU historian, and it is no purpose of mine to alter that, particularly because I lack NPOV myself. But by the same measure, I do have the duty to decry the perversion of history, not least because I'm now, in retirement, on the edge of a very well established academic body focused on the history of the Renaissance, namely The Warburg Institute.