Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Natascha Engel(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hague
That does seem to be the desire of the majority of the Ukrainian people, so all hon. Members will of course hope that Ukraine is able to go in that direction. My hon. Friend is quite right to say that the first priority at the moment is to stress the need to allow peaceful protest. We have done that in the statements we issued at the weekend and in what I have said today. The incident at the weekend provoked domestic outrage and international condemnation, quite rightly, but we will keep the door open, as he and others have asked.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
5. What discussions he has had with his US counterpart during negotiations on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership on the US blockade of the Republic of Cuba and its effect on European companies doing business in that country.
Europe
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Natascha Engel(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hague
I will give way again a little later.
We have already achieved a considerable amount. We have ended Britain’s obligation to bail out eurozone members—an obligation entered into by the Labour party. We are keeping Britain out of the fiscal compact and working to reform the common fisheries policy, and we will achieve more. Like every other member state, we are working with partners to pursue our national and shared interests.
The national debate that we will have over the next few years must rely on an understanding of what the EU does well and what it does not do well; where it helps and where it hinders. The balance of competences review, which I announced in July, will give us a better informed and more objective analysis of these matters.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) pointed out, the changes in the eurozone are raising questions across the EU about national sovereignty and democratic legitimacy. In our view, balancing the need for flexibility, competitiveness and a stronger role for national Parliaments will be central to the future success of the EU.
The European Parliament has an important role that is set out in the treaties and many MEPs do excellent work. However, over the past 20 years, member states have granted the European Parliament a dramatic increase in its powers through successive treaties, in the hope that it would address the growing sense of distance and disengagement among European voters. That manifestly has not worked. The question of democratic disconnection and accountability has not gone away. That suggests that we need a different answer. That answer will include a bigger and more significant role for national Parliaments, which are and will remain the true source of democratic legitimacy in the European Union. By according a greater role to national Parliaments, we will give practical effect and real force to the principle of subsidiarity.
Natascha Engel
These are all very general and nice principles that we cannot disagree with—we all want more fairness and diversity. What we want to debate today is the meat. We want to know what is the Conservative party’s vision for Europe, on which there will be an in/out referendum? That is what we want to debate.
Mr Hague
I am delighted to hear that Opposition Members support all these policies and principles, because many of them were not brought about while they were in office. I commend the hon. Lady for being dramatically clearer than her Front Benchers in her support for what the Prime Minister has set out. I will return to them in a moment.
North Africa and the Middle East
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Natascha Engel(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and every time we make that point we are doing what he is calling for, which is stressing to the people involved that they may well have to answer in future to the ICC. The prosecutor of the Court has begun the necessary investigations, so material can now be gathered and sent to it. The best way to communicate that is through the media, which is why my right hon. and hon. Friends and I, and our colleagues in other countries, have stressed very strongly in the international media, including al-Jazeera and other channels, that this is what is now set in train and that people must remember when they contemplate any crime or atrocity in Libya that the reach of international justice can be very long.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
What, to the Foreign Secretary, does operational success in Libya actually look like? Further to that, what then will be his exit strategy?
Mr Hague
It means the implementation of the UN resolution. I cannot stress this strongly enough—that we operate within international law and under the mandate of UN resolution 1973. So success requires a real ceasefire, not the fake ceasefires announced by the Gaddafi regime in recent days, and a real ceasefire means disengaging from areas of conflict, ceasing attacks on civilians, an end to violence and harassing and menacing civilians, and the full establishment, which we have now achieved, of a no-fly zone over Libya. Those are the requirements of the resolution, and that is the mission that we are embarked on. It is too early to say what will happen when that point has been achieved, because we are still working hard to achieve the protection of civilians and the bringing about of a ceasefire, but that is as far as our military mission in Libya goes.