EU Foreign and Security Strategy (EUC Report)

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

I join the high representative and Mr Lidington, the Minister, in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, and the members of his committee. I invite your Lordships to imagine the headline: “Boris says EU will abolish the Foreign Office”. This is not far from similarly wild claims made by Brexit supporters. Their vision of an EU leviathan rolling over all our hallowed institutions, even in areas that are traditionally the preserve of the nation state—internal security and external relations—is far from the truth.

It is not surprising that, even at a time of globalisation, these areas of internal security and external relations are least touched by the European Union. Yet at a time of unprecedented movement of peoples, of international terrorism and of concern about climate change, it is increasingly difficult to draw a neat distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. Thus, co-operation with our EU partners is ever more necessary and best carried forward with common institutions. The questions posed in this thorough report are: how effective is that co-operation now and how best can it be improved?

I shall make three brief reflections. First, the core of our external relations is now and will remain our national foreign service, our national International Development department, our national intelligence and security services, and our national defence pooled through NATO. But there is a clear need to strengthen our joint impact overseas by working closely with our EU partners, including in the defence field and the European Defence Agency.

Within the EU, different sizes, geography and historic experience make some foreign services pre-eminent. Even if ad hoc groups are appropriate—coalitions of the willing—there must be mechanisms for consulting other EU countries. I recall in 1963 a telegram from our ambassador in Paris about a conversation with President de Gaulle. De Gaulle had said, “There are only two nations in Europe worthy of the name: France and the United Kingdom, and perhaps”—he said possibly as an afterthought—“the Dutch”. Certainly, France and the UK provide about two-thirds of the EU’s spend on research, but we should welcome Germany playing an increasing political and defence role commensurate with its immense economic strength. Let us remember that all countries within the European Union bring something special, something unique, to the table: Spain and Portugal, relations with Latin America; the Baltics and other eastern European countries, relations with Russia; Austria and Slovenia, relations with the Balkans; France, relations with west Africa; and ourselves, the Commonwealth, which at the previous CHOGM built an important consensus on climate change in advance of the historic Paris conference. We should also know ourselves. Europe should surely give priority to our neighbourhood, where our interests are most engaged—countries to the east of the European Union and countries to the south.

The report is right in drawing attention to Russia and Turkey. Over Russia, the European Union achieved a remarkable common policy on sanctions in response to Russia’s aggression in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Over Turkey, we have a long and protracted exercise in ambiguity and delusion, when surely we need honesty in our relationships. We need to forge a special strategic partnership with that important country—as the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, said, a close association. However, pace Ms Mordaunt, there is no serious prospect of Turkey becoming a full EU member within a reasonable period, even though, as Mr Lidington stated in his letter of 15 April, there is,

“strong future potential in co-operation with Turkey”.

Again, we should remember that all European Union instruments, including the prospect of membership, succeeded in building a closer working relationship between Serbia and Kosovo. I give much credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, for her role in that new rapport, still much to be developed.

Secondly, whatever doubts may be expressed about the EU’s role in international affairs, the key fact is that the European Union already has an interface globally, with its responsibilities for trade and in the fields of energy and development policies—which might have had a higher profile in this report. Of course, it needs personnel to carry out these responsibilities.

Two questions arise. Is there sufficient co-ordination between all the relevant EU institutions, including the European External Action Service and the Commission, to maximise the impact—a problem of co-ordination not unknown in Whitehall in seeking to bring together the Foreign Office, DfID and the MoD? Again, how do we encourage more UK nationals, including FCO secondments, to join the EEAS and the Commission generally? Clearly, this is not encouraged by the Government’s past uncertain commitment to the European Union.

We need a debate about the nature of the EU contribution to international affairs. The old United States jibe was, “We”—that is, the US—“do the cooking, Europe will do the washing up”. Hard power is sometimes necessary. The US now presses us to play a greater role. We shall need to learn the lessons of past interventions—yes Iraq, yes Libya. We and France provide much of the hard power but the emphasis will often be on soft power across the spectrum—including sanctions, if we define sanctions still as soft power. We must recognise the difficulties of intelligence sharing, given the traditional open culture of the European Union and the understandable hesitations about sharing our intelligence.

The EU contribution will often be the spreading of our values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Our model and influence may be further harmed by the current policies in Poland and Hungary, and by some of the necessary alliances with certain dictators in west Africa in relation to the migrant crisis.

It is puzzling that the report makes no reference to the Council of Europe, which is the pre-eminent human rights body in Europe and to which the European Union often subcontracts its work on human rights and governance. The Venice Commission, for example, provides helpful advice on both the formation and building of constitutions across the east of Europe and to countries such as Tunisia.

The conclusion is that our strategy must be to concentrate as Europeans on our neighbourhood and on what we do best. Our interests as Europeans can best be furthered by working together. As the report rightly says:

“When the Union speaks with one voice and wields its entire arsenal of foreign policy instruments, it can be an uncommon and exceptional actor”.