The 6^th Meeting of the Association of European Senates held in Warsaw on the theme:

The heads of delegations from the upper chambers of European parliaments present at the meeting welcomed with satisfaction the fact of the European enlargement by ten successive countries on May 1^st, 2004, and expressed their conviction that the enlargement process would reinforce democratic values rooted in Europe's history as well as trends toward integration throughout the continent.

The heads of delegations stated the following:

• The trend toward a larger participation by national parliaments in the European Union decision-making process should be recognized as an important manifestation of the reinforcement of democratic values. On one hand, we are dealing today with europeization of national parliaments and, on the other, with parliamentarization of European institutions.

• We believe that the Draft Treaty Establishing the Constitution for Europe provides national parliaments with an opportunity to play a more significant role in the European Union than hitherto. However, to benefit from that opportunity, parliaments must demonstrate initiative and operational effectiveness.

• We give high marks to the clause of the Draft Treaty giving equal rights to both chambers of national parliaments in the European Union decision-making process. It equalizes their European policy-making roles in those parliaments where both chambers do not play equal law-making or government-control roles.

• We are of the opinion that upper chambers can be particularly useful in representing interests of local politics, namely municipalities, specific regions and other territorial entities by articulating these interests on the European forum.

• We are convinced that the special role played by some upper chambers of national parliaments in representing interests of specific regions and territorial entities in the European Union will further legitimize their control of compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality when writing European legislation.

• We wish to underline the significance of the constitutional reference to the European role of EU member-state parliaments. Indeed, it stresses the weight of the tasks accomplished by parliaments and, at the same time, serves as a form of compensation for the loss of some national-parliament prerogatives to EU bodies. It contributes to the creation of a sense of assurance and stability, which in itself is valuable to any legal order.

• It ought to be stressed that, due to the absence of relevant constitutional provisions, there exists a warrant for a pro-Union interpretation of the constitution in the legislation, and especially in parliamentary regulations, which among other things requires that the parliament be maximally involved in European integration processes.

• We postulate the need to reinforce the role played by national parliaments in the implementation of the European Security and Defense Policy, in a situation where the European Parliament has no sufficient competencies in this area.

• We expect that a reinforced cooperation among the upper chambers will contribute to creating deeper understanding in Europe as a whole.

• We suggest that consideration be given to the creation of an interparliamentary forum composed of delegations representing all national Parliaments within the European Union. This forum will allow to focus on issues of subsidiarity and proportionality and to create forms of parliamentary scrutiny of intergovernmental areas.

The heads of delegations from the upper chambers of European national parliaments have declared their will to continue cooperation on the development of the principles of operation of national-parliament upper chambers in the European Union and in the European integration process, commensurate to the challenges of the globalizing world in the 21^st century.

At the conclusion of the Warsaw meeting, they confirmed the sequence of countries hosting successive Association meetings: Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland. The 7^th meeting will take place in Berlin on 8 - 10 September 2005. The successive meeting will take place in Bern in 2006.

The Rules Governing the Association of the European Senates shall be amended as follows:

Article 1 (Composition), paragraph 1 shall read as follows:

"1. Members of the Association of the European Senates are:

The Federal Council of the Federal Republic of Germany

The Federal Council of the Republic of Austria

The Senate of the Kingdom of Belgium

The House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Senate of Spain

The Senate of the French Republic

The Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Italy

The First Chamber of the States General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Senate of the Republic of Poland

The Senate of the Parliament of Romania

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation

The National Council of the Republic of Slovenia

The Council of States of the Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation

The Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic

The House of Lords of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".