European Union–Western Balkans Summit

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for bringing forward this timely debate. I am also relieved that I am only winding up for the Liberal Democrats and do not have to answer the debate, because it is one of the most depressing debates that we could be having at the moment. We face challenges to British influence and severe questions over the European Union’s willingness to enlarge. How different it was a quarter of a century ago, when there were prospects of eastward enlargement and the UK played a key role in leading it.

In 2019, enlargement to the western Balkans remains vital to those countries. As the noble Earl said, it remains vital to our security and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, suggested, the security of the western Balkans matters to the United Kingdom. However, it is unclear what influence the United Kingdom can have. When the International Relations Committee, whose report has been referred to already, took evidence from Sir Alan Duncan, I asked that question of him. I perhaps did so slightly inappropriately. I queried what influence the Government thought they could have when certain members of the Tory party were spending such a lot of time denigrating Germany’s role in Europe and suggesting that European integration was a bad thing. Surely that made it somewhat difficult—or impertinent, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, put it—for the UK to be advocating enlargement to the western Balkans, or at least encouraging the western Balkans to seek to join. If we are too good to be part of the EU, why on earth should we be encouraging other countries to join? That seems a little strange. Anyway, Sir Alan Duncan suggested that my question was “inappropriate” and therefore decided not to answer it, so I wonder if today the Minister could give an answer about whether she feels that British influence on this question is in fact declining. As a country that is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has just suggested, essentially half way out of the door, with a declining voice, how does the UK envisage having an influence?

It could all have been so different, and arguably should have been. The idea of enlargement and the reasons for countries seeking to join the EU are very similar to the founding reasons for European integration: peace, security and stability. The six founding member states understood the reasons to co-operate. The countries of central and eastern Europe that joined in 2004 understood the reasons for being part of the European project, and so have the countries of the western Balkans—up to a point. As we have heard, there are questions about how far countries have actually changed. The EU has seen enlargement as a way of exercising soft power and exporting the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, all values to which the UK aspires and which we think of as British values as much as European. However, we have already seen that the countries of central and eastern Europe that got their act together, met the Copenhagen criteria and were allowed to join in 2004 or 2007 have begun to turn their backs on those European values. Viktor Orban talks about illiberal democracy. Other countries are facing questions of corruption or questions about their judiciary.

The EU’s ability to exercise its soft power may have come under question, but at least it was a positive aspiration. It was an aspiration best understood by Germany, which always felt that you could expand geographically but also deepen the integration process. We have heard that France under Macron is reluctant to enlarge to the western Balkans, but in many ways he is simply reiterating the concerns of France over decades, feeling that enlargement will weaken the integration process.

Do the current UK Government believe that in the final days of our membership of the EU—unless of course by some deus ex machina we do not leave—they can exercise any influence over President Macron and the other laggards on enlargement to persuade them that it is in the interests of the EU to enlarge? What influence do the Government think they can have on the countries of the western Balkans? We in this Room may feel that it is in the interests of the UK and the western Balkans to see enlargement, but so far the countries seem to be facing the dictum that I first heard in Budapest in 1996: “They pretend they want us and we pretend we’re ready”. The idea still seems to prevail that the EU does not look terribly open to enlargement, and perhaps the western Balkan countries are not as ready as they would like us to think they are.