On 27 September 1974, the Secretary-General of Western European Union (WEU) circulates the final reply by the WEU Council to question 146 put by John Rodgers, a member of the Assembly, to the WEU Council. The member asks whether the Council considers it desirable to establish permanent political consultations between Western Europe and the United States. The document incorporates most of the French and British proposals made in the draft reply (WPM(74)21/1). The Council emphasises that the question of consultations is an important point which has been discussed by the nine Member States of the European Communities in connection with their foreign policy cooperation. It refers to paragraph 11 of the Declaration on Atlantic Relations (the Ottawa Declaration), signed in June 1974 by the Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which lays down the scope and spirit of these consultations. The Council also notes that there are other existing multilateral channels for this type of consultation, for example the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It therefore does not see the need to introduce other permanent political consultations between the United States and Western Europe.