Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, Shakespeare wrote,

“O, who can hold a fire in his hand,

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?”.

We should indeed be thinking more about the frosty Caucasus and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laird, for bringing the region, especially Azerbaijan, to our attention. This is a timely debate, since our EU Select Committee has just embarked on an inquiry into EU enlargement. It is a time when there are doubts even about the viability of fellow member states, let alone our neighbours in the Balkans or others further east. I am thinking, of course, of our economic crisis but also of belated worries about the judiciary in Romania and Bulgaria. I am one of those who would like to see much closer relations with the south Caucasus within a wider European fraternity. The Commission seems to think and act the same, but it does not call it “enlargement”.

As member states, we live in a time of great hesitancy and we, the British, generally do not like to commit ourselves to anything new—especially this Government. But Georgia for me is a good test of the real intentions of the EU over the coming decade. While in the West we are concerned day by day about the inner eurozone and its economic impact on the 27, we seem to lose sight of the enormous political and strategic dimensions of eastern Europe, especially the impacts of the West on the old Cold War frontiers and in the zone of continuing Russian influence. With the recent Nobel Peace Prize quite rightly awarded to the EU, it must be in Europe’s interest to share her experience of the rule of law and fundamental rights as a means of achieving greater freedom and political stability elsewhere.

No one is talking about political union or even a federation; people are talking about a gradual strengthening of relations along the fringes of Europe where enlargement or an enlarged association might take place. Some would say that we are already doing that in Kosovo to secure the border with Serbia—they are both states that seem some way away from full membership, although Kosovo is entering a new stabilisation and association process. We may be undertaking something very similar in the south Caucasus in the future. However, Kosovo has been a whipping boy for a number of states that fear separatist tendencies in other countries—namely, the Basques and the Catalans in Spain and the attempted breakaway of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, now recognised by Russia and only a handful of mainly Pacific and South American sympathisers.

The fragile borders with these territories remind me of the EULEX programme in Kosovo—going nowhere but keeping a fragile peace along the river at Mitrovica. The EU monitoring mission has similarly been critical to the prevention of conflict along the so-called administrative boundary lines on Georgia’s northern border. The mission was established after the war in 2008 to monitor compliance with the 12 August plan and the agreement between Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev on 8 September. Since the Russian veto closed the UN and OSCE missions in June 2009, it has been the only international monitoring presence in the area and, remarkably, the only CSDP mission to which all 27 member states contribute personnel.

Georgia has also entered an association agreement with the EU. The Minister may well point to the enormous investment that the EU is making in the Caucasus arising from the partnership formed after the August 2008 conflict. This is the EU’s little known Eastern Partnership, which covers Georgia and five other former Soviet Union republics. It is benefiting from a €600 million aid programme in 2010-13 to include reform, institution building and regional development. There are many other examples of aid from the European Union, which make it possible for us to have closed our international development programme.

I have been lucky to keep a group of Georgian friends, some of them dating back to my visit to Tbilisi in 1964. Most are in exile, but they keep me informed of events in Georgia. While wanting improved relations with Europe, they were never enthusiastic about President Saakashvili’s style of government. They are more hopeful of change under Ivanishvili, the new billionaire Prime Minister, while not quite knowing his intentions. He is a rather maverick character but, by all accounts, a benevolent, art-loving oligarch. While his fortune was made in Russia, they do not accept the smear that he will necessarily take a pro-Russian stance. Nevertheless, having just appointed a new special envoy to Russia, he clearly wants to rebuild confidence on both sides and, above all, new trade links.

Let us not forget that Georgia is to Russia a little like Ireland has been to England—romantic, wild, poetic, violent and rebellious. It cannot be culturally cut off from Russia and should not be soldered on to the EU either. It must inevitably now find some modus vivendi with Moscow. Georgia signed the European Convention on Human Rights in 1997 and became a member of the Council of Europe two years later. However, there have been serious concerns about Georgia’s human rights record under President Saakashvili. Excessive force, for example, was used by police against protesters on 26 May last year and, while four officers were dismissed by the Interior Ministry, no independent public investigation took place and allegations against the police were never followed up. That is just one small example of the need for the spreading of the rule of law.

What exactly is the reason for the EU’s deepening engagement with this region? Does the Minister believe there have been substantial internal reforms in Georgia justifying this level of international support or does he think that the EU Commission has an eastern mission to contain the sphere of Russian political, and perhaps military, influence? It is 12 years since the CSDP was developed in Cologne and Nice. According to the EEAS website,

“the EU’s role as a security player is rapidly expanding”.

Is HMG satisfied that this expansion is taking place with the support of the whole international community?