EU Foreign and Security Strategy (EUC Report)

Earl of Oxford and Asquith Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Oxford and Asquith (LD)]

My Lords, I echo and wholly endorse the comments of my noble friend Lady Suttie about the quality of the chairmanship of the sub-committee by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat. I will pick up on the section of the report that alludes to a new Helsinki dialogue in relation to Russia and to European security. This issue will be with all of us in Europe for the long term, irrespective of whether or not the United Kingdom remains a member of the European Union.

As many of us will recall, the Helsinki Final Act came into being in a period of very high tension with the Soviet Union and was built on a structure that required considerable concessions and constant dialogue between the parties. As the report states, our Government believe that there is no need to invent new structures and new treaties to address our current problems with Russia. That is perfectly understandable. The Helsinki Final Act is not in fact a treaty and there is little likelihood that we today could greatly improve on the framework our forebears achieved in 1975.

I suggest that the real issue at stake here is not one of structure or treaty but rather one of intent and purpose. Helsinki responded to a need for reassessment and a change of outlook. The current parallel is that today, however you look at it, there is very little resembling a European security strategy with regard to the tensions we are experiencing with Russia. I know it will be objected—indeed, it has been—that, on the contrary, through its sanctions on Russia the EU has demonstrated a united foreign and security policy. It is striking how repeatedly one is referred to the unity of the EU’s sanctions regime as a self-evident definition of its success. But, as the report concludes,

“sanctions are an instrument of policy, not a strategy”,

and unity is not in itself proof of a policy’s success. Only its consequences and outcomes will demonstrate whether or not it has worked.

Today it is not my purpose to question the efficacy of the sanctions against Russia. Realistically, some of them will probably remain, although I suspect that they may eventually prove to have turned to the greater advantage of the Russians. One is told that the Russian economy is buckling as a result of the measures we have taken, but if you look at the figures relating to the profitability of their companies, the government budget, their balance of payments, unemployment and so on, the Russian economy is doing surprisingly well, or better than we thought.

My point is that at the height of the Cold War, when politically Europe was in a state of much insecurity, when there were indeed also embargoes and sanctions on the Soviet bloc and COMECON, at the same time a constant dialogue was maintained through the sophisticated use of various instruments to ensure that the dangers of escalation were recognised and contained. What should concern us today is that there is hardly that level of dialogue now.

The argument, understandably, is that Russia has breached the principles of European security and that the consequence must be political, diplomatic and economic isolation. There is no doubt that Russia has breached those principles, but the USSR also violated the principles of the Helsinki Final Act. We Europeans objected very strongly, but we maintained the motivation to engage, recognising that that was the sensible means to manage tensions. Today, tomorrow—who knows? Perhaps we may need to become more confrontational with Russia, but we should not deceive ourselves in the meantime. You cannot for long run a disconnected relationship—saying, as it were, to the Russians, “We shall co-operate with you over Iran. We may share joint objectives against ISIL. But, by the way, we shall do our best to destroy your economic and commercial infrastructure”. As a model of strategy, that does not work.

There is a strategic framework that we Europeans can negotiate with Russia over the longer term to address the many problems that lie between us, but for this to happen we have to be honest on two fundamental issues. To depend on a policy of isolation, economic sanctions, the belief that Russia will implode and the hope that Putin and his court will disappear is wishful thinking, and the US seems now to have recognised that that is the case. But while the US can and will act independently, if we in Europe are to enter into a longer-term engagement with Russia than our current attitude enjoins, we shall need to consider some different instruments from the ones we are presently using. The Russians and Americans will not do that for us.

Russia in Europe is a recurrent theme in our continent’s history and, by the same token, it has regularly had to be reassessed. This report is to be welcomed for its recognition of the need for a genuinely strategic European approach.