The NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO-PA), originally called the North Atlantic Assembly (NAA), is an inter-parliamentary organisation founded in 1955 in order to enable representatives of the parliaments of members of NATO to meet and discuss common security problems. Today it includes representatives of the legislative bodies of the 26 members of NATO as well as of 13 associated countries. The NATO-PA comprises 248 members plus 59 parliamentarians who represent associated delegations. Most of these parliamentarians are members of defence committees in their own countries. The chairmen and deputy chairmen of the Swiss Committees on Security Policy thus have the opportunity to meet their counterparts when they attend NATO-PA functions.
From a legal point of view, the NATO-PA and NATO are independent entities. The absence of a formal link with NATO has not prevented the Assembly from developing close working relations with it over the years, however. The Assembly has only advisory powers, but over time it has taken on a role as an important forum for discussing security.
The Assembly is funded directly by the parliaments and governments of its member states; at a financial and administrative level it is independent of NATO itself. The Assembly’s international secretariat is based in Brussels.
The Assembly is made up of five committees which cover the principal areas of security (the Defence Committee, the Political Committee, the Committee for Civilian Security, the Science and Technology Committee and the Committee for Economic Affairs and Security). Each committee comprises one or more sub-committees. On the basis of an annual work schedule, the committees and sub-committees organise several meetings each year in a member or associate member country. At these meetings presentations are given by high-ranking government and parliamentary representatives as well as renowned scientists and experts. The result of this work is reviewed during the plenary sessions of the Assembly, which are held twice a year, in spring and in autumn. The committees and sub-committees draw up reports which are then reviewed in the form of projects at the spring plenary session and subsequently revised and updated for discussion, modification and approval at the annual meeting. The latter is also an opportunity for the committees to draw up general political recommendations (resolutions) which are voted on at the plenary session and, if approved, are then submitted to the NATO Council and/or the governments of the member states. The plenary sessions are also an opportunity to review certain current issues through the participation of government representatives or experts (drawn from academic or scientific circles, NGOs or from the press).
Apart from these five committees, the NATO-PA also includes the following committees or working groups:
- A Standing Parliamentary NATO-PA/Russian Committee. This new body, which met for the first time in November 2002, is made up of the heads of the delegations from the 26 countries which are members of the Assembly and their colleagues from the delegation of the Russian Federation. Led by the President of the NATO-PA, this standing committee supervises relations between the Assembly and the Russian parliament and chairs in-depth debates on pertinent issues. It meets during the plenary sessions of the Assembly.
- A Joint NATO-PA/Russian Parliament Surveillance Group which has existed for some time and which holds two meetings a year, one at NATO head-quarters in Brussels and the other in Moscow.
- Joint NATO-PA/Ukraine Parliament Surveillance Group which meets each year in Moscow and Kiev in order to supervise the implementation of the NATO-Ukraine charter and to discuss all aspects of relations between the two signatories;
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A Joint NATO-PA/Georgian Parliament Surveillance Group which was created in Valencia in November 2008.
- A Special Working Group for Mediterranean Affairs which meets once a year.
The standing committee is the Assembly’s governing body. It comprises the Assembly Central Office (the President, the five Vice-Presidents and the Treasurer), the heads of the delegations from the member states and the chairmen of the committees. The standing committee meets during the plenary sessions and holds a third meeting each year, too. The Central Office issues general guidelines, coordinates the committees’ work, draws up the agenda for the plenary sessions and supervises the Assembly’s financial affairs. The Secretary-General of the NATO-PA supervises the international secretariat and implements the policies decided upon by the standing committee.
Finally, since one of the NATO-PA’s new aims is to help put in place the parliamentary mechanisms, practices and know-how which are essential for exercising true democratic control over the armed forces, it collaborates with the Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) in Geneva [link: http://www.dcaf.ch/index.htm] in organising a series of seminars on various aspects of relations between the civilian and military sectors.
Brief history
When it was founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) did not comprise any parliamentary organ. Within a short time, however, it became apparent that it was necessary to have a parliamentary body which would work alongside NATO. As early as the beginning of the 1950s, the idea of setting up an Assembly comprising parliamentarians from member states was proposed. This Assembly was to be a forum for discussing the problems with which NATO might be faced. It was only in 1955 that the first annual conference of NATO parliamentarians took place, but it was soon to become an institution and in 1966 it became the North Atlantic Assembly (NAA). In November 1967, when the North Atlantic Council (NAC) recommended that informal relations be established between the two bodies, the foundations were laid for cooperation between NATO and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. As a consequence, after consulting the NAC, the Secretary-General of NATO now replies to all the recommendations and resolutions adopted during the plenary sessions. He also attends the plenary sessions of the NATO-PA. Conversely, the President of the NATO-PA reports to the heads of state and heads of governments of NATO member countries when they hold summit meetings.
Following the historical events which occurred at the end of the Cold War, the Assembly extended its mandate in 1991 by granting associate member status to Central and Eastern European countries and later to most of the countries which have joined the Partnership for Peace.