EU Foreign and Security Strategy (EUC Report)

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, as a member of the sub-committee that conducted this inquiry, I am delighted that we have the opportunity today to debate this report. As we do so, though, it is perhaps worth pausing, just for a moment, to reflect on why the EU’s strategic review of its foreign and security policy is so important to us. After all—some might argue—if the people of this country vote on 23 June to separate themselves from the Union then that review will be of no more than academic interest to us.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, has observed, nothing could be further from the truth. We acceded to the EU in 1973, yet more than 400 years earlier, in the 16th century, we were busily engaged in maintaining a balance of power in Europe, making use of alliances with such partners as Portugal, the Ottoman Empire and the Netherlands. During the 18th century we engaged in the stately quadrille, in which we, Austria, France and Russia moved through a series of changing alliances designed to provide security within Europe. After the Napoleonic Wars came the Concert of Europe, then the Triple Entente. The failure of the League of Nations in the 20th century led eventually to the Anglo-French guarantee to Poland; and in the aftermath of the Second World War, we moved on to NATO and then the EU.

The plain fact is that, for most of the past millennium, the security of these islands has been bound inextricably to the security of the rest of the continent, and that will continue to be the case whatever the outcome of the referendum on 23 June. Whether we are inside or outside the Union, the EU’s foreign and security policy will have huge implications for us in the UK. We have, and will continue to have, a critical stake in its success or failure.

So what can the EU do now and in the years ahead to improve the effectiveness of its policies in these areas? In the limited time available to me, I should like to point to three areas—already touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, in his excellent speech—where it might focus its efforts. First, it must recognise that its strategy must link ends, ways and means in a coherent and achievable fashion. There is a common saying which holds that you cannot will the end if you do not will the means. This is certainly true, but it can be expressed in another form: you cannot will the end if you do not possess the means.

When we talk of “means” in this sense, we refer essentially to power: the power to persuade others to change their minds and/or their courses of action. That power can take many forms. Moral authority, economic weight, diplomatic skill, military force—these are all dimensions of power, but many of the sources of such power, and the authority to wield them, reside within individual states, not with the authorities of the EU. In many ways, therefore, the EU as an institution acts as an organising, co-ordinating and focusing instrument for such power, rather than its source. This does not mean that the Union is powerless, far from it, but it means that for its foreign and security policy to be effective, the EU must recognise and account for the limitations inherent in the means by which that power is generated.

However and wherever it is generated, though, most elements of that power will depend upon a framework of economic strength. Delivering that strength is not the remit of those working on the foreign and security policy, but their efforts will be largely in vain if the EU and its members cannot restore their economic vigour. Riches cannot by themselves guarantee security, but poverty can pretty much ensure its absence. That holds, of course, for individual states just as much as for the continent more widely.

My second proposition concerns the need for prioritisation, as set out in the report. Not long ago there was perhaps a sense that security within the immediate environs of the EU could be taken broadly for granted—that while we might not have seen the end of history on the global stage, we had witnessed it within Europe and the EU could therefore focus its attention and spread its benison further afield. That dangerous illusion has been dispelled. The threats to the security of our continent and to the members of the EU are serious and growing. The EU needs to act strategically to counter them. Of course the Union has wider interests and should not ignore them, but its priority must be its own members and the European neighbourhood, not grandiose schemes for global security.

My final point concerns the worrying disconnect within the EU between hard and soft power. The EU’s strengths lie very much with the latter, but power cannot sensibly be divided up into discrete parcels. Clausewitz maintained that war was the continuation of policy—or politics—by other means. The nature and measure of the power appropriate to the conduct of international affairs will vary not just between, but within situations. So while the EU may not, and indeed should not, be the principal instrument for the exercise of hard power, it should nevertheless be able to co-ordinate its own activities effectively with the application of such power.

As the report makes clear, the Berlin Plus arrangements, which were to provide for such co-ordination by linking NATO and EU activities, have proved ineffective. This is a dangerous situation. There are many dimensions of power that are unavailable to NATO and the same is true of the EU. Together they can supply the continent with the spectrum of power necessary for our security, but if they cannot do it seamlessly and coherently, then we are in danger. The two institutions must find a solution to this dilemma.

There are, of course, several other very useful recommendations in the report, and I hope that the EU will give them all the serious consideration that they deserve. I sense that throughout the continent there is a growing realisation that we need to pay much more attention to our security, and that this may at last be beginning to be reflected in the appropriate budgets. It is still too little, but it is at least a beginning. The UK has rightly given a lead to our partners in this regard. We need to continue to give such a lead in that and all other areas of this crucial debate.