France confirms dissolution of Western European Union

France and its European peers have decided to dissolve the Western European Union (WEU) as the new European charter Lisbon Treaty has started to be applied across European Union, French Foreign Ministry confirmed Wednesday in a statement.

"It's a decision logically resulted from the improvement of Europe's construction and the progress of Lisbon Treaty," the ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in the statement.

Since all members of the WEU have become members of the European Union, they unanimously agreed to dissolve the old union, the statement added, noting that the historical role of WEU has fully completed with the EU establishment.

The dissolution will take effect in June 2011, the statement confirmed. Belgium and Bulgaria have announced the dissolution in their earlier statements.

The WEU is a intergovernmental defense and security organization, which was formed by Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to implement the Treaty of Brussels that signed in 1948.

The organization is formally established in 1954 and have 10 member states and five observer nations and seven associate partner countries in Europe.

Source: Xinhua