European Union (Approvals) Bill

Debate between Bob Seely and Paul Scully

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Seely]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and I will hopefully pick up on a couple of his points. I will speak briefly in support of the Bill, and specifically Serbia and Albania’s admission to observer status in the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. That is important for us, but it is extremely important for those two countries, particularly Serbia.

Whether we like it or not—we clearly do not, because we thought that it had ended about 20 years ago—we are in something of a cold war with the Russian Federation, or at least with its leadership. The aggressive cooling of relations was advertised in President Putin’s Munich speech back in 2007, and it could be said that there was a gestation period of some 10 to 15 years before that during which the forces of proto-communism and socialism, hard-line nationalism, and even an aggressive, virulent fascism coalesced around an illiberal hostility to the western world. Whether we like it or not, there is a battle for Serbia’s future and, broadly speaking, there are two models for where the country is going. One is pro-EU and involves democracy, individual rights and hostility to minority oppression. It is not a perfect system—it could be said that a little more adversarial politics would be no bad thing—but those things are critical to a civilised society.

As the hon. Member for Gedling was saying, the other model that the Serbians face is the one that the Russians want: hard-line nationalism; hostility to individual rights; perhaps a celebration of a sort of pan-Slavism; and aggressive propaganda against NATO, the EU and “gay Europa”, as the Russian official media would have it. The hon. Gentleman mentioned conservative nationalism, but it goes beyond that—it is a virulent form of illiberalism in almost all forms. It is almost proto-fascist, although it gains support from both sides, with avowed fascists and avowed communists having a similar social agenda involving antagonism towards homosexuality and what they perceive as deviance, and a slavish hierarchical acceptance of an order that we would consider stifling and deeply unpleasant.

Examples of the active destabilisation that has sadly been engaged in in the Balkans include the recent attempted coup in Montenegro, which was allegedly carried out by the GRU—Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate—and the handing out of Russian passports to Serbians in the Balkans. The aim of that is to give the Russians the ability to interfere in politics in that part of the world and, in the worst-case scenario, to create the destabilising, small-scale conflicts that have marked Russia’s behaviour in the former Soviet states. There is also economic and political pressure in mainstream Serbia to try to get the country, and powerful individuals within it, to turn away from a broadly pro-western, pro-EU model.

What can we do about that? From my experiences in former Soviet states, the easiest things are probably free trade and free movement—all those things with the word “free” in—as well as support in every conceivable way for civil society, which the EU’s fundamental rights will help to grow. That is the fundamental basis on which democracy will be strengthened on the basis of our alternative—a broadly pro-western, liberal alternative —with a rejection of more aggressive, destabilising nationalism. For those reasons, the Bill is somewhat important to us, but it is extremely important to the Serbians.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

We are still a member of the EU, so it is right that we proceed with the Bill as quickly as possible. We are not talking about leaving the EU on bad terms, so it is right that we spend time considering such cases as good members of the EU. Two of the four procedures that we are considering under the Bill involve giving Serbia and Albania observer status in the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. The agency replaced the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. It collects data about fundamental rights and seeks to engage the public and civil society on tackling such issues. That sounds to me very much like the work of the Council of Europe. I have returned this morning from Strasbourg, where the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is still going on. That body needs a lot of reorganisation and work to bring it up to scratch. However, there was mention earlier of what we might do post-Brexit to engage with such agencies, and it occurs to me that there would be an opportunity, if we were so minded, for us to consider how we might bolster an organisation such as the Council of Europe and wrap things up, rather than duplicating effort.

I think that the last time I was in Strasbourg was during the April session, and I opened up my locker yesterday to find my speaking notes from that trip. The Council of Europe building, which sits next to the Strasbourg European Parliament building, is essentially mothballed. There is a lot of waste and a lot of duplication, and we could work with our European colleagues and partners to ensure that we streamline things and focus on the frontline of protecting people’s fundamental rights. This debate will affect many millions of people.

Albania and Britain have some quite odd but big links. C. B. Fry was offered the monarchy of Albania, which he turned down, giving rise to the reign of the wonderfully named King Zog I. Norman Wisdom is also fêted in Albania; I think he has a statue in Tirana. The reason why I know these two bits of pub quiz trivia and little else about Albania was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant): Albania has been a very closed country for a long time. It is important that we work however we can to open up that country and keep it progressing, joining the international community in the fullest possible way and protecting people’s rights.

I welcome the accession of Serbia and Albania to the agency, but I also want to say a word about the Canadian aspect of the Bill, as we consider competition law ahead of the ratification of the CETA deal. I have been lucky enough to travel around the world over the past few years to places such as Bangladesh, Burma, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Taiwan, and they have all been looking at how they can work with the UK through free trade deals. I am excited about the prospect of having free trade with as many countries as we can. I do not care if the EU is involved in this free trade—we need to widen it out so that we can break down barriers wherever they exist. Working on CETA and against anti-competition procedures can only be a good thing for our European partners. Although we might not be around in the EU to benefit from the CETA deal, it is only good for European and global trade that we should push this Bill through.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Third Reading