The minutes of the fourth plenary meeting of the working party on production and standardisation of armaments of 31 January 1955 set out the continued discussions on the French memorandum (PWG/A/2). United Kingdom representative Sir Christopher Steel agrees with the aims set forth in the preamble, namely to increase efficiency of logistic services in the military sphere, to reduce costs and to harmonise the various interests in the economic sphere. However, the United Kingdom emphasises that it is unable to take part in supranational institutions and does not believe that this solution could lead to successful results. The French plan would enable savings to be made, but at the cost of production efficiency. Furthermore, the British Government identifies two problems — German demand and the reduction of American aid — which affect the countries of Western European Union (WEU). It does not appear to be advisable to duplicate the existing machinery in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in the field of standardisation and production. In this respect, Sir Christopher Steel believes that it would be possible to establish joint machinery by means of which WEU, using the NATO machinery, should be able to give that machinery the necessary impulse. French representative Alexandre Parodi prefers to restrict his remarks to the general discussion, but notes that without an institution entrusted with the task of organisation, it would be impossible to achieve adequate unification of production methods and efforts would continue to be dissipated.