Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Smith, for his introduction and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for recounting what goes on in these parliamentary assemblies. I am a member of the UK-EU parliamentary assembly, set up under the trade and co-operation agreement, and I often feel that there is a lack of feedback to our own Parliament—here and the other place—when these assemblies take place. Although that is not a matter to concern the Minister, it is maybe for the House authorities to consider how to have better feedback on how these parliamentary assemblies work.

I am not a great expert on the OSCE, but I wanted to take part in this debate because it is important and I am interested to understand from the Minister how the UK Government look upon the organisation, as it moves into the future. I have to admit that my interest came from when, some 50 years ago, the Helsinki Final Act was made. Even in those days, I took a great interest in international relations, and it seemed to me that that Act was a major step forward not just for the Cold War and a dialogue between the two sides but for the first steps of liberation of the citizens whose freedom was contained by the Soviet empire at that time.

Although that may not have been the actual factor that caused the fall of the Soviet empire and the liberation of those eastern and central European and Baltic states, as well as central Asia, it was an important step towards that. But all the good work that the organisation has been doing on elections and human rights has clearly become very difficult since the invasion of Ukraine, first in 2014 and, latterly and particularly, last year. Because of that, and in the ways that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, explained very well, there has been paralysis inside the organisation—very much as the Arctic Council, further north, has found it very difficult to operate a consensus organisation, as the OSCE is, and cannot now operate properly.

From my point of view on European security, I hope that, although the OSCE is very much now constrained, it will survive and we can manage to keep it working, despite the problem over the Estonian presidency and the budget. I hope that we can optimistically look forward to better days for liberal democracy in Europe so that the organisation can fulfil its much broader functions in future. I may be a little too optimistic about that.

I was very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Hindhead, brought up the European Political Community. That was my major question for the Minister—first, to congratulate the Government on getting fully involved in President Macron’s grand design last year in Prague. There have been two further meetings in Moldova and—maybe not so successfully—in Granada. This is a way forward; there are only 44 members, obviously not with North America or central Asia. I am very interested to understand how the Government see that the European Political Community should move forward on a defence dialogue for Europe and for our liberal democracies in the West and Europe. How could that organisation move forward, and how can we ensure that the OSCE itself does not grind to a complete halt due to the intransigence of Russia and Belarus? I would be very interested to hear how we can be optimistic and move forward this agenda of European security in a more substantial way—not least because of the potential challenges of the next American general election, given that we do not know what sort of European security regime we will have in future.