60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

1955 2015

60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

The idea of engaging Alliance Parliamentarians in collective deliberations on

the problems confronting the transatlantic partnership first emerged in the

early 1950s.

The Assembly’s creation reflected a desire on the part of legislators to give

substance to the premise of the Washington Treaty – particularly Article 2 –

that NATO is as an Alliance of democracies.

Sir Geoffrey de Freitas (United Kingdom)

President of the North Atlantic Assembly 1977-1978As early as 1951, he called for the Assembly of

the Council of Europe to be transformed into

an Atlantic Assembly which, he believed,

should have a formal consultative role within

NATO.

Senator Guy Gillette (United States)

In 1952, he was a participant in the

meeting between American and Canadian

legislators which unanimously called for the

creation of a NATO parliamentary Assembly.

Mr Finn Moe (Norway)

Chairman of the Norwegian Parliament’s Foreign

Affairs Committee, and one of the co-organizers of the first Conference of Members of Parliament from the NATO Countries

In 1953, at the Copenhagen International Study

Conference on the Atlantic Community, he

drafted the resolution which called for the

creation of an advisory conference of NATO

parliamentarians.

The first “Conference of Members of Parliament from the

NATO Countries” was held at NATO Headquarters at the

Palais de Chaillot in Paris on 18-22 July 1955, bringing

together 158 parliamentarians from 14 NATO nations.

The conference elected Senator Wishart McL. Robertson

of Canada as its President, and agreed to establish a

Continuing Committee – the precursor of the Standing

Committee – consisting of the President, three vice-

Presidents, and one representative from each delegation.

It also decided to appoint a small, part-time secretariat,

initially based in London until it moved to Paris in 1960.

.

60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

In 1956, the NATO Committee of Three’s Report on Non-Military Cooperation

in NATO recommended closer relations between NATO and the

parliamentary conference.

58. (…) the formation of national Parliamentary Associations and the activities of the Conference

of Members of Parliament from NATO countries have contributed to the development of

public support for NATO and solidarity among its members.

59. In order to maintain a close relationship of Parliamentarians with NATO, the following

arrangements are recommended:

a. that the Secretary General continue to place the facilities of NATO Headquarters at the

disposal of Parliamentary Conferences and give all possible help with arrangements for

their meetings;

b. that invited representatives of member governments and the Secretary General and

other senior NATO civil and military officers attend certain of these meetings. (…).”

Committees were established during the second conference in

1956.

In 1958, the number of Committees was set to five – Economic,

Cultural Affairs and Information, Military, Political, and Scientific and

Technical.

Although committee titles and terms of reference have evolved

over the years, this basic structure remains today.

The 12th Conference unanimously agreed to rename theorganisation as the North Atlantic Assembly.

In December 1967, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) authorised the NATO

Secretary General to strengthen co-operation with the Assembly.

Since then, the NATO Secretary General addresses Assembly sessions, and

responds in writing to the recommendations and resolutions adopted by the

Assembly.

Following France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military structure in 1966, NATO

and the NAA moved their respective headquarters from Paris to Brussels

The leaders of Allied governments, in their Declaration on

Atlantic Relations, recognised that:

“The cohesion of the Alliance has found expression not only inco-operation among their governments, but also in the freeexchange of views among the elected representatives of thepeoples of the Alliance."

This declaration endorsed the work of the Assembly without

mentioning it directly.

Leaders of the US Delegation, Senator Jacob Javits, Congressman

Wayne Hays with Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, greeting

Assembly member, Piet Dankert (Netherlands) and other members

In 1980, the Assembly began holding two plenary sittings each

year.

With the introduction of a plenary session in the spring in

addition to the autumn annual session, the pattern of Assembly

activities was set to remain largely unchanged until the end of

the Cold War.

60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

In the late 1980s, the Assembly reacted promptly to a

rapidly changing security environment.

By reaching out to Central and Eastern Europe, involving

legislators from countries in the region in co-operation and

dialogue, and assisting them in exercising effective

parliamentary oversight and control, the Assembly made a

vital contribution to the construction of a more stable,

secure and democratic Europe.

First Assembly visit to a former Warsaw Pact country.

The Sub-Committee on Central and Eastern Europe travels to Budapest at the invitation of the Hungarian National Assembly.

First Assembly visit to Moscow

At the Annual Session in London, the Assembly adopted Resolution 224 on ’New Regional Responsibilities for a Transformed Alliance’ which created the new status of ’associate delegation’.

This status allowed the integration of parliaments from Central and Eastern Europe into Assembly activities before the establishment of equivalent ties by NATO itself.

Assembly President Charlie Rose

(United States)with the leaders of the

delegations of the three newly

independent Baltic states taking their

place as associate delegations,

Madrid, 1991.

Then President of the Assembly Congressman Charlie Rose andSenator William Roth initiated a substantial programme of practicalassistance to the partner parliaments with a particular focus on thedevelopment of appropriate civil-military relations.

The Rose-Roth initiative remains today the Assembly’s primary toolfor engagement with delegations from non-NATO membercountries.

Charlie Rose William Roth

The first Rose Roth seminar was held in Lithuania in a tense

environment with Soviet troops still present in the country

Sandbags in the Lithuanian parliament as a precaution against

further violence, December 1991.

60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

In 1996, the

Assembly

established a

Mediterranean and

Special Group

(GSM), a forum for

co-operation and

discussion with

parliaments from

the Middle East

and North Africa.

Meeting of the Mediterranean Special Group with the Marrakech Chamber of Commerce, during a

visit to Morocco, April 2004.

Countries aspiring to become NATO members used the

Assembly as a channel to build support for their integration into

Euro-Atlantic structures.

The requirement for parliamentary ratification gave an additional

emphasis to Assembly debates on enlargement.

The Assembly was directly concerned with assisting in the

process of ratification of the Protocols of Accession signed at the

end of 1997, which culminated in the accession of the Czech

Republic, Hungary, and Poland to the Alliance in March 1999.

At the historic Madrid Summit, in which Czech Republic, Hungary,and Poland were formally invited to accede to NATO, thenNATO PA President, US Senator William Roth, addressed NATOHeads of State and Government.

The invitation from NATO leaders to Senator Roth represented atacit acknowledgement that the Assembly had played a key role inpaving the way to enlargement, and would have a central role inencouraging parliamentary ratification of enlargement.

Since then, NATO PA Presidents have been invited to address allNATO Summits.

In 1998, the Assembly established a Joint Monitoring Group with the Russian

parliament to oversee implementation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act and

a Joint Monitoring Group with Ukraine to oversee implementation of the NATO-

Ukraine Charter on a Distinctive Partnership.

The NATO-Russia Joint Monitoring Group at NATO

headquarters being briefed by senior NATO and

Russian military representatives, 1998.

In 1999, the North Atlantic Assembly was renamed as the

“NATO Parliamentary Assembly” to take into account the

profound transformation it had undergone since its creation.

NATO Press Service

file No. 16943-19

NATO Press Service

file No. 16938-05

The NATO PA created a New Parliamentarians Programme aimed

at giving new members of parliament or members of parliament

new to defence issues a better understanding of NATO’s

structures and processes

Visit to SHAPE, July 2004.

60 years of parliamentary diplomacy

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 brought to the

forefront the new reality of the 21st century an unpredictable

world characterised by a new set of global challenges including

terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and

the emergence of lawless territories in “failed” and “failing states”.

As NATO adapts to these new challenges, the NATO

Parliamentary Assembly plays a key role in explaining the reality

and requirements of today’s security environment to citizens in

Europe and North America, and dispelling misperceptions about

NATO.

The US National Defence University hosted the first Parliamentary

Transatlantic Forum in Washington, the largest annual gathering

of European parliamentarians in the United States

Nancy Pelosi & John Tanner

In 2002, the NATO PA-Russia Joint Monitoring Group became the

NATO-Russia Parliamentary Committee;

The NATO-Ukraine Joint Monitoring Group became the Ukraine-

NATO Inter-parliamentary Council

Signing of a Co-operation Agreement

between the NATO Parliamentary

Assembly and the Russian Delegation

to the Assembly, October 2001.

At the Annual Session in November 2004 in Venice, Italy, which

marked the beginning of celebrations of the Assembly’s 50th

Anniversary, the entire North Atlantic Council for the first time

joined members of the Assembly for a special plenary

meeting.

The accession ceremony for the seven new NATO members,

Washington D.C. (USA), March 2004.

In 2003, NATO takes over command of the International Security Assistance

Force in Afghanistan (ISAF). As ISAF assists the new democratically elected

government of Afghanistan to re-establish control over its territory and rebuild its

security structures, the Assembly reaches out to the new Afghan Parliament.

The Assembly conducts its first official visit to Afghanistan in 2004, and in 2007, a

group of Afghan parliamentarians attends a NATO PA session of the first time.

Following the August 2008 conflict in Georgia, the

Assembly decided to strengthen its institutional

relationship with the Georgian Parliament by

creating the Georgia-NATO Inter-parliamentary

Council (GNIC).

Georgia became an Associate Member of the

Assembly in May 1999.

Through its cooperation with the Georgian

Parliament, the Assembly has supported Georgia’s

reform agenda, and its goal of eventual Alliance

membership.

In response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and

illegal annexation of Crimea, the Assembly expressed its

unambiguous support to the sovereignty, territorial

integrity, and political independence of Ukraine, and

withdrew Russia’s associate member status.

NATO’s Summit in Wales in September 2014 opened a

new chapter in the Alliance’s evolution in a security environment characterised by tensions to the East and growing

instability in the South. In this context, parliamentary support,

dialogue and diplomacy remain as important as ever.

1955-1956

Wishart Mcl

Robertson

1959-1960

Antoine Béthouart

1957-1959

Johannes J. fens

1956-1957

1969-1970

1975-1977

Wayne Hays

1960-1961

Nils langhelle

1961-1962

Pietro Micara

1964-1965

Henri Moreau de

Melen

1963-1964

Georg Kliesing

1962-1963

Lord Crathorne

1965-1966

José Soares da

Fonseca

1966-1967

Jean-Eudes Dubé

1970-1971

Romain Fandel

1968-1969

Kasim Gülek

1967-1968

Matthias A;

Mathiesen

1971-1972

C. Terrence

Murphy

1972—1973

John Peel

1973-1975

Knud Damgaard

Jack Brooks

1980-1982

1979-1980

Paul Thyness

1977-1979

Sir Geoffrey de

Freitas

1982-1983

Peter Corterier

1983-1985

Sir Patrick Wall

1992-1994

Loïc Bouvard1996-1998

William Roth

1994-1996

Karsten Voigt

1985-1986

Charles

McCMathias

1990-1992

Charlie-Rose

1988-1990

Sir Patrick Duffy

1968-1988

Tom Frinking

1998-2000

Javier Ruperez

2000

Tom Bliley

2000-2002

Rafael Estrella

2002-2004

Doug Bereuter

2007-2008

Jose Lello

2006-2007

Bert Koenders

2004-2006

Pierre Lellouche

2008-2010

John Tanner

2010-2012

Dr Karl A. lamers

2012-2014

Hugh Bayley

2014 -

Michael Turner

1955 2015

“All This"

by

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)