Western Balkans

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for this very timely debate. Of course, I also repeat the mantra that a secure and stable western Balkans means a secure and stable Europe. As the Minister said in the previous debate, we have a shared interest in working together to increase stability and help the region on its Euro-Atlantic path. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned, it is just over a year since we had the report from the International Relations Select Committee on the western Balkans. After that, in May, we had the debate on the report, which was very timely as it came soon after the western Balkans summit in Sofia and after the first visit to the region from a British Prime Minister in more than 20 years.

As we have heard, sadly, we are today missing one person who contributed to that debate in May. I too pay tribute to the late Lord Ashdown, especially for his work as high representative in Bosnia. He was a brave and tenacious person. He did not hold back his opinions whenever he needed them to be heard. As the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said, had he not left Bosnia in 2006 the situation could have been vastly better than it is today. He should have be proud of what he, and this country, contributed to stabilising the country. Of course, we should not forget the 72 British soldiers who gave their lives building that stability.

As Lord Ashdown told us in that debate, he felt very strongly that his work had been severely undermined in the region by the EU’s change of policy in 2006, leaving everything to local ownership, as the noble Baroness mentioned. Bosnia was not stable, with nationalism on the rise and secession a greater threat than ever before. That is a view reflected in today’s debate and very much in the debate in May. As the noble Baroness mentioned, we have US disengagement, and, as other noble Lords have mentioned, the increase of Russian influence that we focused on in May has not diminished. In May the Minister told us he was aware of the threat and cognisant of the need to address it, repeating the Prime Minister’s mantra that what we needed was an “engagement and beware” type of policy. He mentioned the need to continue to engage through the Bosnia Peace Implementation Council steering board with Russia. I hope he can tell us just how that has been effective since the last debate in May—how have we been engaging with Russia to address the issues heard in the debate?

All noble Lords mentioned the situation with Serbia and Kosovo. I will not go into the specific points, but we have had little progress on the EU-sponsored dialogue since 2013. In December, Kosovo’s Parliament voted to approve a 5,000-strong standing army. We also have the situation in NATO, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The Secretary-General of NATO called the move by the Kosovan Parliament an “ill-timed” decision. I have seen the UK’s response to it, but can the Minister tell us how the UK is working through NATO to address that issue?

The really good thing about today’s debate is that it gives us an opportunity not only to reflect on the debate we had in May, but to consider what our expectations and aspirations for the summit in July were. We all mentioned our hopes. Now we have the opportunity to judge what the Minister told us in May and see what was delivered. In his characteristic way, the Minister left us on an optimistic note, saying we would use the summit in London to work with our partners to address all the concerns raised by noble Lords. The committee report last year stressed the need for us to use the occasion to ensure that our contribution is to support stability, democracy, the rule of law and prosperity in every issue that has been addressed today. The summit’s conclusions were for greater progress on those three crucial areas: increasing economic stability, strengthening security co-operation and facilitating political co-operation.

Despite these high aspirations there is no doubt that there were criticisms. Some felt it was no more than a photo opportunity. Clearly the London venue and our preoccupation with Brexit had an impact, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned. You have to address the issue that a country leaving the EU was trying to hold a meeting aimed at encouraging others to join it. That, clearly, is an issue one has to be sceptical about.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, on the day of the summit, our Foreign Secretary, who was due to welcome the Ministers, had resigned. Talk about timing. Theresa May also found herself in a situation where she was addressing Parliament to defend her own Government’s position. Of course, there is no doubt that, for some people, that demonstrated that the six western Balkan countries are not a priority for the United Kingdom, especially when the Government seemed so unstable. There were social media comments. I read one from Professor Bechev, a specialist in the field, that Balkan leaders were coming to London to lecture the UK on political stability. But there is a serious underlying issue. We promote accession for very good reasons: it is a mechanism for building democracy and commitment to the rule of law. It has been a tried and tested process. In our earlier debate, we did not underestimate the problem that that accession process has. Sometimes it has been done too quickly and some of the guarantees or commitments could not be delivered. Lord Ashdown particularly made the point that we were not looking at the region as a whole in that accession process. Allowing some countries into the EU more quickly than others created its own tensions. I know that he focused on that in our previous debate.

I am not going to be completely pessimistic. The fact is that the London summit achieved some very positive results. We have heard about them today. We have of course had some important declarations signed on regional and good neighbourly relationships, missing persons, and a joint declaration on war crimes. I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and how we address those issues, particularly in the context of the region. I was particularly pleased to see a doubling of funding to the region from the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund as well as a doubling of UK staff dealing with security issues, and the £10 million for digital education among young people.

I want to focus on another element of the summit, which the Minister mentioned in our May debate, and which the noble Baronesses, Lady Helic, and Lady Barker, have raised: the role of civil society. My noble friend Lord Browne mentioned the important need to see political engagement as not just with Governments. It is also about politicians and parliamentarians. We need to have broad engagement. I will focus on civil society. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said prior to the summit that we would work closely with civil society and youth groups to develop the summit agenda and ensure that civil society and young people from the region were well represented and, more importantly, heard by political leaders at the summit. As we have seen from the report, 140 civil society and youth representatives attended the London summit for the civil society and youth forum. I would like to hear from the Minister exactly how that voice was heard by politicians. How did we do that? How did we achieve it? I know that the announcement of £4 million to expand the activities of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy is great news, and certainly welcomed by me. Again I emphasise that the WFD is focusing on parties, parliamentarians and voters, but I have raised with the head of the WFD that we should see civil society and building democracy in broader terms.

At the congress of the Party of European Socialists in Lisbon in November, but also at a number of WFD initiatives, I met with parliamentarians to talk about how they engage with civil society, particularly on diversity issues, and how we engage on and defend LGBT rights. I am keen to see whether there is LGBT representation in the civil society forums at the summit. I know the value that that sort of work can have, because it enables people to hear voices that they do not normally hear. That is true of the importance of women’s involvement in civil society. That is another issue about how political parties have been changing. I hope the noble Lord gives us some indication on that.

This has been an incredibly timely debate. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, continues to ensure we have this debate so that we can monitor our progress. One of the things that was said was that we would work with Poland on the next summit, not only on how we evaluate the action points from this summit, but on how we build the next one. I am keen to hear from the Minister exactly what sort of engagement we have with Poland now to ensure that that work continues and that we are fully engaged.