European Council

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that the UN is at the centre of this, not least because it makes it even more difficult for the Russians to slide away from their responsibilities—they often appeal to the UN and cite the UN charter when making their arguments. Therefore, the UN should be part of the contact group that would include the EU, the United States and European countries such as the UK. In that way, the UN can play a major role in helping to pursue a path of talks and diplomacy, which is the right way to de-escalate the conflict.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Obviously, the EU Council meeting was dominated by events in Crimea, but on a related matter can the Prime Minister update the House on the association agreements with Georgia and Moldova?

[The Prime Minister]

We want to see these association agreements proceed. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the EU has different instruments for having friendly relations with neighbours and other nearby countries. It is right to pursue those and to offer such agreements, so on all those cases we should see progress. As was the case with Ukraine, we should not sign these agreements without thinking carefully about the steps that we expect the countries to take at the same time.