ABSTRACT
5 tasks’ (involving the security of Europe as a whole and requiring the engagement of American forces). The latter would remain the remit of an autonomous WEU, while the former would revert to EU jurisdiction, either through politically or legally binding directives, or through transfer to the EU of part of WEU’s functions. The WEU Council thought any third alternative would offer three avenues for the transmission of EU decisions to WEU for implementation: stronger Council ‘guidelines’; EU ‘instructions’; ‘legally binding link’. Whatever the relative merits of these various alternatives to the two starker choices of autonomy or merger, it is clear that their raison d’être is twofold: a) to facilitate a process eventually leading to merger; b) to allow greater flexibility for neutrals to participate in peacekeeping and other security operations.
