Dan Byles
Main Page: Dan Byles (Conservative - North Warwickshire)Department Debates - View all Dan Byles's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
No—to be consistent with all the answers I have given before. The European Union has referred to targeted measures and I have referred to well judged, well targeted legal measures. I have not excluded anything. Many hon. Members have made interesting proposals during the course of this statement, but I stressed before that when we take such measures it is important for there to be unity on them, as well as for them to be well judged and well targeted. That means we must work on them together in the European Union, and that is what we are doing now.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Why does my right hon. Friend believe President Putin feels that he will get away with this? What are we and the rest of the free world doing wrong if Putin believes he can act with impunity, as he clearly does?
Mr Hague
As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), there have been previous Russian actions in Georgia and Moldova which might be considered a model for this action, and Russia has not felt sharp consequences as a result of them. That is no doubt an emboldening factor, but I think Russian policy has also been driven by the imperative I referred to a few moments ago of trying to alleviate, or reverse in some way, the major setback for Russian foreign policy that took place only 10 days ago in Ukraine, and also possibly by the desire—which I referred to much earlier—permanently to impair the free and democratic operation of Ukraine and its Euro-Atlantic aspirations. There is a mixture of motives, and I entirely accept that it is important that we raise the penalties and consequences for acting on those motives.