The Rome Declaration was the document signed at an extraordinary session held by the Council of Ministers of the

Western European Union The Western European Union (WEU; french: Union de l'Europe occidentale, UEO; german: Westeuropäische Union, WEU) was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 ...

(WEU) (composed of the Foreign and Defence Ministers) in Rome on 26 and 27 October 1984 to mark the 30th anniversary of the

Modified Brussels Treaty The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western Union (alliance), Western Union (WU) between 1948 and 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB) and served as the foundin ...

(MTB). The declaration decided to make better use of WEU to increase cooperation between the member states in the field of security policy, and reactivated the WEU. From the late 1970s onwards, efforts were made to add a security dimension to the

European Communities The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom), and the ...

European Political Cooperation __NOTOC__ The European Political Co-operation (EPC) was introduced in 1970 and was the synonym for European Union foreign policy coordination until it was superseded by the Common Foreign and Security Policy in the Maastricht Treaty of November ...

(EPC), which thus far had primarily dealt with economic aspects of security issues. Opposition from Denmark, Greece and Ireland to the Genscher-Colombo initiative in November 1981, whose aim was to extend the EPC's sphere of competence to security and defence questions, prompted the countries in favour to look for another framework of consultation. WEU was the favoured choice. Remaining EC countries - all WEU members - reactivate the WEU by means of the Rome Declaration. Following the

' 1986

Single European Act The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign ...

, which codified the EPC in EU law contained little of substance on EC defence integration, the WEU member states adopted the ''Platform on European Security Interests'', which emphasised the need for intra-European defence integration and strengthening of NATO's European pillar.

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Original text
Virtual Centre for Knowledge on Europe
''The development of WEU''
Virtual Centre for Knowledge on Europe {{EU treaties and declarations Western European Union 1980s in Rome 1984 in Europe 1984 in Italy October 1984 events in Europe Events in Rome

See also

References

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