Posted on 27 June 2011
Following the signing of the contract of deposit on the 27th May 2011 by the Secretary General of the Assembly of the WEU, Colin Cameron, and the Director of the HAEU, Jean-Marie Palayret, the Assembly of the Western European Union (due to the cessation of its activities) transferred on the 24th June, 60 boxes of its historical records from Paris to Florence.
The Assembly was founded in 1954, with the creation of the Western European Union. For more than 50 years, the Assembly, located in Paris, has been exercising interparliamentary scrutiny of intergovernmental activities in all areas of European security and defence. In the last few years, following the transfer of the WEU's operational activities to the EU, the Assembly's main focus was to scrutinise the EU's European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) while continuing to monitor the implications of cooperation with NATO. The Assembly paid particular attention to issues such as peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.