EU and Russia (EUC Report)

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Tugendhat and his committee for the excellent work that they have done in producing the report. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Oxford and Asquith on his excellent maiden speech. I say that because the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who is sadly not now in his place, welcomed him as a fellow member of the Diplomatic Service. I welcome him as another example of the goodness of the hereditary system and the by-election system in bringing people into this House who can make a contribution who might not otherwise be taking part in national politics.

There are a number of examples of larger countries breaking rules with impunity. We have seen it in the EU itself, with France and Germany making agreements and then breaking them. Some people point the figure at China. Now we have Russia breaking an international agreement. Whatever one thinks of Mr Putin and his actions, I believe that we might have reason to be grateful to him. I say that because he has made us wake up. He has certainly shaken up the former Soviet Union states—some of which are now in the EU, some of which are not—which were perhaps a bit starry eyed about what the West could offer and how much benefit there could be from the West. It has certainly shaken up the West. By the West, I mean the EU and the US. It is one of the sadnesses that this report is inevitably more EU based than internationally based, because the EU policy towards Russia will have to take account of what the US is doing.

I ask my noble friend on the Front Bench what she expects the EU’s reaction to be to the US supplying arms to Kiev. Will there be a united response, or will an American action divide the EU rather than a Russian action?

The report rightly highlights some of the failures of the West and shows as a result what a tricky negotiating partner the EU can be at times. It is striking at paragraph 235 how shocked Mr Putin was that for once the EU was unified and had a strong sense of purpose. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, mentioned the understandings that the US had with Russia, which seem to be broken with fairly good impunity on its side.

My noble friend Lord Jopling said that he hoped that NATO would have full European support, but that is a big if. Can there be full European support? This takes me back to the point that we might be grateful to Mr Putin, because we now have a better chance than there has been to date of having a long-lasting European response to the Russian problem.

When I talked to people in the Czech Republic, particularly the older generation, I was struck by what a generation gap there seems to be. These people were born under the Soviet regime—the noble Lord, Lord Soley, mentioned what a transformation they have had—and they are finding it extremely difficult to adjust to western European standards, which the young seem to pick up fairly quickly. There was certainly a hankering to go back to a more structured, family-orientated way of life that existed in the Soviet Union, much though they disliked the oppression at the time. Mr Putin’s actions have made that older generation think that they were perhaps being slightly misty-eyed about what had happened in the past and that the reality, whatever difficulties that generation gap produces, is a better alternative.

I was also struck by the fact that the Lithuanians who gave evidence to us in Sub-Committee A did not want to talk about the single currency but about defence, because they saw the euro as part of defence. The remark that particularly struck me was that the Russians could attack them much more easily if they had their own currency, but now that they were part of Europe they saw its currency as part of their defence policy and were much more resilient to any difficulties that Russia might cause.

I want to ask my noble friend about what I read at the end of last week that really thrilled me: that we were going back to one of Mrs Thatcher’s old policies—giving help to the former Soviet states for good governance. This was a hugely important part of the Foreign Office brief then. If we are to give £20 million a year to the former Soviet countries for good governance and improving their way of life, I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us more about it.

We must be under no illusion as to what the Government in Russia are up to. I stress again, as some noble Lords have done, that we need to separate out this Government from Russia itself. We are not criticising Russia, because there have been different Governments. We heard before this debate started that Russia is now exploring selling ships to the Argentinians, who are going to call those ships the Malvinas-class destroyers. That is another way of getting at the unity of the EU and separating parts of the West from itself. I hope that as a result of all the damage, horrors and evils that have happened over the last couple of years, we will emerge with a stronger, more united EU and a more sensible regard for some of the sensitivities of Russia and treat it as a more equal partner than in previous years.