However, what we in the Committee on Regional Development are calling for is for this single framework and coordination not to be confined to the policy planning stage but to be extended to cover all policy-making stages: planning, implementation and payments, auditing and evaluation.

28. Reaffirms that all of the above points should be tackled by means of a clear-cut long-term common political resolve, making full use of the potential offered by the Lisbon Treaty, and that any common defence policy intended to move gradually towards common defence must serve to strengthen the EU's ability to respond to crises and to provide for long-term peace-building, and above all enhance Europe's strategic autonomy and capacity to act; calls for an extraordinary European Council meeting to be given over to European security and defence; renews its call for the drafting of a White Paper on European security and defence, to be se ...[+++]t up in a process that includes all relevant EU stakeholders, and to be based on national defence and security reviews in all the Member States which accord with a common template and allow for direct comparability of strengths and weaknesses in current capabilities and planning assumptions;

28. Reaffirms that all of the above points should be tackled by means of a clear-cut long-term common political resolve, making full use of the potential offered by the Lisbon Treaty, and that any common defence policy intended to move gradually towards common defence must serve to strengthen the EU's ability to respond to crises and to provide for long-term peace-building, and above all enhance Europe's strategic autonomy and capacity to act; calls for an extraordinary European Council meeting to be given over to European security and defence; renews its call for the drafting of a White Paper on European security and defence, to be se ...[+++]t up in a process that includes all relevant EU stakeholders, and to be based on national defence and security reviews in all the Member States which accord with a common template and allow for direct comparability of strengths and weaknesses in current capabilities and planning assumptions;

Coupled with that is the fact that, in addition, the communications manager has left a paid position, the ED of licensing inspection and health reporting, the ED of planning and communications.and you've also lost a policy analyst.

A common currency, a common foreign policy and a common defence policy would give the EU that credibility in the eyes of its citizens and create that identification with it, whose absence we often regret.

Then there are two corporate branches. There is the Corporate Services Branch, which does administration, finance, facilities management, infomatics the usual things; and then the smallest branch, which is my branch, is the Policy and Consultation Branch, which has responsibilities for planning, communications, federal-provincial relations, and international relations, and also looks after substantive policy areas such as the Canada Health Act, women's health, and other major policy issues such as new reproductive technologies.