EU and Russia (EUC Report)

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the committee on an excellent report and add my voice to those who have paid tribute to the first-class contribution to our debate from the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith.

Recent contributors to this debate have emphasised that Russia has legitimate interests. There is no argument about that, but the question in my mind is whether President Putin is a respectable and representative bearer of those interests and whether he deserves the kind of co-operation and regard that I think all of us would like to give to the Russian state. My reluctant conclusion—the evidence seems to me to bear this out—is that it is very difficult to deal with this man on terms that one would regard as honest and straight- forward. He has a track record of oppressing his neighbours. There is no good reason, and no provocation from the West, that could justify what happened in Georgia and the proclamation of the so-called independence of the enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for which, I might say, we simply gave him a rap on the knuckles.

He has developed, not just in theory but in action, doctrines of spheres of influence. You can argue about their legitimacy, but the fact is that he has used them to oppress his neighbours and to override the sovereign rights of inhabitants of other countries. He has arrogated to himself the right to protect Russian-speakers irrespective of their citizenship. He has a track record of fairly aggressive activity.

At home, he has shown himself to be a very revisionist authoritarian. He has suppressed domestic opposition, built up military force and drummed up a nationalist agenda which now provides the background against which he can maintain his domestic popularity. He has not concealed this. I do not disagree with those who say that we should nevertheless have regard to Russian interests, but we must do something more effective than we have done so far about his preferred methodology of pursuing his agenda: propaganda, subversive activity in neighbouring countries and skilfully devised irregular military action which is carefully calibrated not to trigger any specific article of the Washington treaty. As a result, we have found it very difficult to deal with him.

He has obviously been encouraged by the inability of NATO Governments to devise a credible response. I say to those who think that the wise thing to do would be now to rule out NATO membership for either Georgia or Ukraine that they should think of two things: first, the destabilising effect that that statement would have in those countries, which also have interests in the matter; secondly, would Putin really regard this as fair dealing? I think he would regard it as an immense prize, enabling him to gobble up these countries even more effectively. I would be against any such declaration. It is a separate issue whether we pursue actively their membership of NATO and I would certainly not be in favour of that in the present circumstances.

We have to recognise that Putin has demonstrated determination that Ukraine should not be allowed to move westwards—it is part of the area that he wants to keep under his control and in which he can actively interfere. We have been proposing that the possibility of European Union membership should be available to Ukraine. Not only does Putin oppose Ukraine’s membership of NATO, it is increasingly clear that he does not like the implications of an association agreement or of membership of the European Union. I do not think that we can allow those policies or attitudes to stand. The Ukrainians have a right to fashion their own destiny.

As a result of the present situation, we face some fairly unattractive choices. Obviously, one of them is a result of what has happened in eastern Ukraine—to match force with force. That would be disproportionately risky and I would not support it at all. But I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that we should actively consider the sale of weapons that will increase the defensive capability of the Ukrainians. I cannot see why they should be put in a position where they are outgunned and outmanoeuvred by separatist forces in part of the country.

These are all calculated risks. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, also mentioned something that I very strongly agree with; that is, the consequences of the failure of the Budapest memorandum. That has very wide consequences for those who wish to promote, as I would like to see it, a reduction in nuclear proliferation and, indeed, encouraging countries to go non-nuclear. What conclusions do you draw if the result of giving up your nuclear weapons is to be invaded?

The Kiev Government face a difficult task, politically and psychologically. Ukraine has not been a successful country so far and they are now faced with the extraordinarily difficult task of fulfilling their side of the Minsk agreement, which demands that they do certain things, without having full control over the situation on the ground or much certainty that anything liberalising that they do will actually bear fruit. But they have to make the effort and it should be a high priority of western policy, including of our own country, to help them in this task. The Government’s initiative in proposing a good governance fund is excellent, although it will need resources from other countries and a much wider effort on the part of EU member states, along with international agencies, to accelerate the economic development of Ukraine.

Finally, what about future policy towards Russia? We do need one, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, rightly said. We need to keep open the door to a more constructive relationship in a post-Putin world—I fear it is going to be a post-Putin world—and, as far as we can, we should try to prevent the spread of antagonism into other areas of policy. We have a strong interest in not having overspill but we must signal the unacceptability of current Russian policy in Europe. I agree that sanctions are not an end in themselves and will not do the whole job but I do not think that we can do anything but continue to signal our disapproval and they have to stay in place, at least until the fulfilment of the Minsk agreement. I hope this will be on time, although I admit that I am not optimistic.

We need to learn some lessons. We need to work against the Russian hardliners, as was said yesterday, projecting our understanding of the world and our values in a sophisticated and well resourced information strategy, which the European Union ought to engage in. We ought to do something about defence. The decisions taken recently by NATO at the Wales summit are a beginning but they are only a beginning, and it is right that we included cyberattack as coming within the purview of Article 5. We need more rapid implementation than we are getting at the moment and NATO needs to revive its almost defunct military planning capability. We need to look at security in the round.

The most recent UK national security strategy did not have European security as a focus. That has to change. European security and the defence of our dependent territories are surely the meat and potatoes of British defence and foreign policy, and we must not allow other threats to our security—I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Soley; they are not equally deadly—to distract us from the importance of ensuring the security of our own continent. Of course, there is a wider scope to this in the fringes of our continent, which are also increasingly in flames. The capabilities we need cannot be realised for less than the 2% undertaking to NATO. I hope that the Government will stop messing about on this subject, which damages their credibility and undermines the confidence that our allies have in this country.