NATO Brussels Summit 2018

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement, but while I appreciate the pressures that the Government are under it has been the norm that we would get early sight of a Statement before it is made. Today, we received it shortly before the Prime Minister started speaking in the other place at 3.24 pm.

If reports of the summit are accurate, this appears to be one of the most divisive summits NATO has had, despite common agreement on a number of key issues. We welcome indications that the NATO alliance is responding positively to changing warfare and future threats. The declaration from the summit concluded that countries can invoke Article 5 on collective defence response for hybrid warfare. That starts to open up what an Article 5 response might look like, ensuring that a wider range of potential options are available. It might not be military. It can also be, for example, diplomatic—perhaps not too dissimilar from what happened following the Skripal attack. This is a crucial issue, which could redefine a NATO Article 5 response. Were there any further discussions about what it might look like in the future, including the process of determining how it would be co-ordinated?

I note that the summit also highlighted the importance of working in tandem with other international organisations, including the UN and the EU. Was there any discussion about the role of both these organisations in co-ordinating an Article 5 response? Was there any discussion about promoting collaboration between NATO and the UN in conflict prevention and peacekeeping in terms of the wider security issues in the NATO alliance area?

As the noble Baroness and others in your Lordships’ House will know, the founding principle of NATO was about guaranteeing security across Europe and the North Atlantic. Bearing this in mind, and events in Salisbury, have the Government held any bilateral discussions with the US, including with President Trump at the summit before he left to meet President Putin, about our response to Russian aggression? The NATO summit declaration rightly condemned the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea. This was in some doubt beforehand, because of comments made by President Trump. What steps are our Government taking to support the Government of Ukraine?

On NATO spending, I have been reading the statement from the summit, while at the same time looking at comments and tweets from President Trump. My understanding is that nothing has really changed in terms of the 2014 aim for all countries to reach 2% of GDP on defence spending by 2024. This has been quite a slow process, but it is ongoing and there is continual progress. On the UK’s commitment, does the noble Baroness consider it appropriate that the UK now includes spending on military MoD pensions as contributing towards the UK target, when it had not been included under previous Governments? What consideration has been given to the assessment by the International Institute for Strategic Studies that we have fallen short of meeting that 2%, even with pensions included? As well as the commitment for NATO to spend 2% on defence, what is the current thinking on the Government’s own modernising defence programme? Will that require additional funding over and above that 2%?

The noble Baroness and others may have seen the comments from President Trump on this issue. I do not know whether she has spoken to the Prime Minister yet as to whether the Prime Minister agrees with the description of the meeting as, “two days of mayhem”. It could be that after President Trump’s visit to the UK she has become inured to his extraordinary behaviour. Press reports, and the President’s Twitter account, indicate that the US President did not moderate his claims or his actions as he flew to Brussels, as we saw when he arrived in the UK.

On the issue of defence spending across NATO countries, the Prime Minister’s Statement says:

“This summit included an additional session in response to the challenge posed by President Trump”.


Does the noble Baroness know when that additional session was held? Can she comment on the accuracy of reports that the scheduled meeting on Thursday morning with Georgia and Afghanistan, two crucial issues that she mentioned in the Statement, had to be halted and the two countries asked to leave after President Trump arrived late and insisted on discussing NATO spending there and then, even though it was not on the agenda and had not been scheduled?

President Trump announced that the EU leaders had caved in to his demands, had agreed to meet the 2% target by next January—2019—and that they would then go further and had “upped their commitment”. That is not in the Statement, so is that the understanding of the UK Government, or is it, perhaps, fake news? President Trump also issued what some regarded as an ultimatum, suggesting that without these commitments the US could leave the NATO alliance. The expression was that America would “do its own thing”. That is not borne out by the decision of the US Senate last week, which, showing very strong bipartisanship, voted 97 to 2 in support of NATO.

It seems there is very little that is new from this summit, although the importance of the NATO alliance countries reaffirming shared commitments and values must be recognised, alongside our ongoing shared commitment to meet the challenges of the future. There is much to be gained by our working together, but it is clear that much more needs to be done to maintain and achieve commitments that have already been made.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this NATO summit, despite an extraordinarily long communiqué, was essentially about only one thing: the future relationship of the US, and particularly its President, with Europe. President Trump says many worrying and extraordinary things, but when he describes the EU as one of America’s foes we are clearly in extremely challenging times. His statement is all the more remarkable because NATO faces more external threats—from Russia on the one hand and international terrorism on the other—than for several decades. At least President Trump’s performance in Brussels and subsequently in the UK has succeeded in one respect in which the Government have conspicuously failed—he has brought the country together, albeit in opposition to him and many of the policies he is now promoting. In these circumstances, it is vital that the UK speaks with a clear and firm voice and that it works ever more closely with its European allies.

There is only one reference in the Prime Minister’s Statement to the discussions that she held with President Trump on Russia. It says:

“But as I agreed with President Trump in our discussions last week, we must engage from a position of unity and strength”.


I think many are concerned that there is now no such unity with the US on relations with Russia. As the Prime Minister talks of unity, did she seek and gain an absolute assurance from President Trump that he would indeed continue to support the NATO policy of opposition to the Russian annexation of Crimea? Did she gain any assurances about continuing US presence in the vulnerable Baltic states? More generally, did she gain any assurance that the President continues to see NATO as the best mechanism for addressing the whole range of our shared security challenges?

On every issue on which President Trump has challenged mainstream thinking—climate change, Iran and trade, for example—the UK has found itself on the same side as our EU partners and not with him. We may find after today’s meeting in Helsinki that the same applies to some security issues. So was the Prime Minister able to have discussions with any of our European partners while she was in Brussels about the form of foreign policy and defence relationship which might exist were we to leave the EU? The White Paper on our future relationship with the EU says that we must ensure that,

“there is no drop off in mutual efforts to support European security”,

and that the proposed mechanism for achieving this is to include,

“provisions for discussion between EU27 leaders and the UK Prime Minister”.

Did the Prime Minister discuss what such provisions might look like with the principal military powers in the EU, particularly France? What response did she get?

The Prime Minister’s Statement ranges over a number of areas—for example, Afghanistan and cybersecurity—where it is clear that we can be secure only if we work in the closest co-operation with our allies. A combination of President Trump and Brexit is putting a strain on these relationships. It is vital that the Government, with their new Foreign Secretary, bring greater clarity to our strategic foreign policy priorities. It has been lacking for far too long.