UK and the Western Balkans (IRC Report)

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford and his committee on this informative review of the situation in the western Balkans—or, as some in the region prefer, I am told, south-east Europe. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for his comprehensive introduction to the report. I regret that I cannot bring the insight of my noble friend Lady Helic or the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, to this subject but I nevertheless believe that the report is timely and that we have cause to be concerned about developments in many of the countries in the region.

As the report highlights, there is an ongoing risk of political, religious and ethnic conflict, nationalism and instability in a number of the countries. The threats and problems are well set out by the committee. The attention Her Majesty’s Government are now paying is welcome but, while they give assurances about our ongoing commitment to the region and support for the aspirations of the countries of that region to be members of the EU, I cannot see how our exit from the European Union will do other than make that more difficult. We intend to be deeply involved and may well try very hard, but we will be doing it from outside the EU.

My noble friend the Minister may refer me to the Framework for the UK-EU Security Partnership, which covers a number of the issues that are of concern in this area. However, that seems to be dependent upon negotiations and largely aspirational—perhaps he will point me to where it is not—and obvious questions will flow. How will we, as a third country, ensure that enlargement of the European Union to include the western Balkans will remain high on the EU agenda? The countries of the region have valued the UK’s resolute support for their inclusion into the EU and, despite the reservations of my noble friend Lord Balfe, I still believe that the prospect of EU membership is a driver for reform and the building of democracy in the region.

The new commission’s strategy for the Balkans is welcome but we will not be there to follow it through. How will we influence EU decisions over the accession of Serbia, a candidate country? How can it be admitted while it remains at best ambivalent and at worst hostile towards Kosovo, whose own European destiny remains in question while the problem with Serbia remains unresolved and other member states of the EU fail to recognise its independence?

How are we going to deal with the name question of Macedonia, to which reference has already been made? Yes, we have influence in NATO, but where will our influence and voice be in the councils of the European Union? How are we going to influence the European Union on foreign and security policy when Serbia deals with Russia in arms and other matters? These are EU matters over which we will no longer have a direct influence. The Government’s intentions are good but, unless something remarkable emerges from the negotiations over our future relationship with the EU, we will lack the ability to directly influence events.

I declare an interest as a member of the OSCE PA—the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly—one of its vice-presidents and a former leader of our delegation. The western Balkans has been noted for some time by the assembly’s special representative in the region, Mr Battelli of Slovenia, as a cause for concern for all the reasons that have been discussed today and in the committee. The only reference to the work of the OSCE in the report is at paragraph 66 where its activities in Macedonia are mentioned. Otherwise the organisation gets no mention. The Government’s response is similarly reticent, only mentioning OSCE as one of the partner organisations with which we will work in the future.

Why does this matter? It is somewhat surprising as the OSCE, which is doing much work in the region, has missions or presences in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia. To give your Lordships some idea of the significance of the OSCE in the region, I cannot do better than refer to its 2017 annual report. I will not try to enumerate all the work of each mission in each country, but it can be seen from the report that the work is varied. It includes helping states to improve their capacity to fight serious and organised crime, helping to prevent the trafficking of people and drugs, helping to build democracy and the rule of law, working with elected officials, school administrators, teachers and parents to reform education systems, monitoring violations of free expression in the media, and supporting judicial and constitutional reform. It does this to a greater or lesser extent in all the countries I have referred to. I shall give just one specific example: the demilitarisation programme saw the destruction of more than 90 tonnes of unstable conventional ammunition in Montenegro. The OSCE works to improve democratic procedures and to safeguard human rights through the work of its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights as well as through its representatives for freedom of the media and for national minorities.

I am aware of the difficulties experienced in the OSCE, despite the dedicated work of our permanent representation in Vienna under the guidance of our ambassador, Sian MacLeod. The need for consensus and the obstruction of the Russian Federation makes the work difficult, but I ask the Minister to confirm that, despite the difficulties in its operation, HMG recognise the existence of the OSCE as a vital partner in the region, that they recognise that greater demands are being made on the resources of the organisation—particularly in Ukraine, which is not the subject of our debate today—and that our zero-budget approach may not be appropriate in these new circumstances. All the issues that the OSCE deals with are of concern, and expressed to be so in both the report and the Government’s response.

In the new global United Kingdom to which we aspire outside the European Union, the OSCE, stretching as it does from Vancouver to Vladivostok and encompassing 57 participating states, is an organisation we should support and perhaps ensure that its work is better known. The ministerial council meets only once a year in December. After a number of requests from the British delegation, in 2010 the Foreign Office started to issue a Written Ministerial Statement after that meeting, which was the only communication with Parliament about the OSCE’s work. I am therefore very disappointed that no such Statement was issued after the last Vienna ministerial meeting last December. Will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the practice will be reinstated, since if the Government do not attempt to inform Parliament about the work of the OSCE, its profile will remain low, even below the radar of parliamentarians, never mind the wider world?