EU Foreign and Security Strategy (EUC Report)

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tugendhat]

That this House takes note of the Report from the European Union Committee Europe in the world: Towards a more effective EU foreign and security strategy (8th Report, Session 2015–16, HL Paper 97).

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I begin with thanks, in particular to my colleagues for their commitment and constructiveness, and to our excellent committee clerk Eva George, Roshani Palamakumbura, Will Jones and our specialist adviser Dr Kai Oppermann. We were extremely well served by all of them. On behalf of the committee I express my gratitude to them. I am also grateful to the Government and to the EU high representative and vice-president of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, for their responses to our report, both of which we have had an opportunity to consider. Finally, I welcome the fact that so many of my colleagues are in the Chamber today and that a number will speak, as will a number of noble Lords who were not on the committee, which demonstrates the interest that the report has generated.

Inevitably, our work took place under the shadow of the referendum, and the referendum looms over our proceedings today. However, I stress that our inquiry was not taken for any reason connected with the referendum but because the high representative had stated some time ago that she was preparing a new EU strategy on foreign and security policy, to be published in late June. Our aim was to feed into and to influence that process. This exercise—the one we have been involved in but also the other work the EU Select Committee does—sets an example to parliaments throughout the European Union on how national parliaments can influence EU policy if they set out to study it and to make an input in due time. Our report today will have an impact, or will be seen to do so, on what Mrs Mogherini proposes at the end of June. Indeed, I am encouraged to learn from her response to our report that in a number of respects her thinking is very much in line with ours and, as I will make clear during the course of my speech, she has given other indications of the extent to which she and we have been thinking on similar lines.

At the beginning of our report we emphasised that foreign policy is the responsibility of the member states and that it should remain so. I was pleased to see that in a speech Mrs Mogherini gave in April at the European Union Institute for Security Studies she made exactly the same point. We want the European Union to provide the member states with an overarching framework within which they can act collectively and more effectively than in the past. This does not necessarily mean that all of them will work together all the time. Experience has shown that ad hoc groups acting on behalf of the Union as a whole can be the most effective means of achieving rapid and decisive action. One of a number of examples of that is of course the E3+3 on Iran. However, if one has an ad hoc group, the challenge is to ensure that the European Union has the means to ensure that the policies and actions of that group become and remain accepted by all the member states. To achieve this, we believe that the high representative should always be involved. In their response to our report the Government argue that that should not necessarily be a prerequisite. We think that the Government are mistaken because, although foreign policy is a member state responsibility, it is often executed by European Union institutions and by means of European Union instruments. The sanctions on Iran and Russia are obvious examples but one could also take examples from the fields of development and trade. So in our view it will be less difficult to achieve and maintain unity, and therefore to maintain effectiveness in the implementation of policies, if the high representative is always present on these ad hoc groups.

That brings me to the issue of Britain’s participation. Obviously, if we were to decide to leave the European Union, it would create a major upheaval in our relationships with our partners in NATO and in a number of other institutions, and it is hard to believe that foreign policy would be unaffected by that. Indeed, the fact that a number of previous NATO Secretaries-General and a number of former United States Secretaries of State have made their views known about how much they would regret Britain leaving the EU is perhaps an indication of that. However, even if the upheaval were less than I fear it might be and it were handled with the maximum good will on all sides, which naturally I hope it would be, Britain’s departure from the European Union would put us at one remove from the execution process. No doubt we would still be able to align our actions with those of the European Union but this would be less effective and more time-consuming than being part of the EU process in the first place. Therefore, we conclude that British withdrawal from the European Union would both limit the United Kingdom’s influence in foreign affairs and reduce that of the European Union.

Here, I should like to mention an exchange that I witnessed at an EU parliamentary conference in The Hague in April. Representatives of all the member state parliaments, as well as of the European Parliament, were there. One delegate—I do not know from which country she came—asked one of Mrs Mogherini’s top officials whether it would not be easier to reach agreement on foreign policy matters if Britain left the EU. The official replied, “Yes, it probably would be easier but the agreement would be worth an awful lot less than if Britain remained in the EU”. She emphasised that Britain is one of the most global member states of the EU and that the exercise of producing an EU foreign and strategic policy would be worth a good deal less if we were not part of it. I thought that that was a very apt reply and that it very much reflected the reality of the situation.

We also conclude that the most direct challenges to the security and stability of the European Union, to its member states and to the citizens of those member states originate in our neighbourhood, and that that is where the European Union’s efforts should be concentrated. I note that in a recent speech Mrs Mogherini made a similar point. In our report we call in particular for relations with Turkey to be put on to a new and sustainable footing. We believe that its application for membership having been left on the back burner for goodness knows how many years has led to disarray in the relationship between Turkey and the EU, and that it is now very important that that relationship should be rebuilt on the basis of first principles.

We do not envisage Turkey becoming a member of the EU; rather, we were thinking in terms of a close association. In the light of some of the things that are being said in the referendum campaign, it is important to emphasise that any decision for Turkey to enter the EU would require unanimity by all member states, that all member states would have a veto, and that a number of member states have made it clear in the past that they would exercise such a veto. None the less, we feel that a stable and clearly understood relationship between the EU and Turkey should be an important objective.

We have something to say too on relations with our other neighbours. So far as the Eastern Partnership countries are concerned we argue that, in the absence of a realistic timetable for entry into the Union, the European Union needs to define its objectives and interests and to communicate those as clearly as possible to the countries concerned. Most people will agree that when one looks at the political and economic state of those countries and the nature of their relationships with Russia, it is difficult to imagine them joining the EU for a very long time. However, at the same time, it is important that we have a clearly defined relationship with them, that our objectives and interests are stated, and that we avoid raising unrealistic expectations in those countries about what we are prepared to do and willing to deliver.

We believe that it is important for the European Union to continue to stand up to Russia’s breaches of international law, but at the same time make it clear that our quarrel is not with the Russian people but with the Russian leadership and that we remain open to dialogue and co-operation in areas of common interest. In this context, we also talk of the need to strengthen EU and NATO deterrents in the Baltic states and the Black Sea.

It is against this background that we call for better co-operation between the European Union and NATO. We want a closer cultural convergence between the two organisations. We address this recommendation to member states of both organisations—they are, to a great extent, the same—as much as to the organisations themselves, as individual member states’ foreign policy and defence postures can often diverge somewhat between what they say and do in an EU context and what they say and do in a NATO context.

Finally, I return to the Middle East. All of us are aware of the huge challenge of the migrant crisis, which has become more serious and more difficult since we completed our report. The migrant crisis was not part of our report’s purview, but the crisis itself emphasises our recommendation that the EU should focus its attention on the linked issues in the Middle East of economic reform and good governance, and on the political, judicial and security sectors of those countries, and seek to assist in whatever way it can in their development.

That is a brief summary of what the committee has proposed. I am grateful to the Government and the high representative for their responses. I look forward to what my colleagues and others have to say. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I want to thank everybody who contributed to this very thoughtful debate and say how grateful I am for some of the remarks made about the committee and my chairmanship of it. When I listened to a number of the contributions, I realised what a long agenda of possible subjects the committee has in front of it. I am sure that my successor was listening equally attentively, and I will follow with interest the path she takes in response to much of what was said today.

I thank the Minister for her thoughtful and encouraging reply. I take this opportunity, through her, to thank the officials in the Foreign Office, who were uniformly helpful, not only on this report but on the various other reports with which I was involved. I express my appreciation to them.

Many points were made that I would like to take up, but the hour is late and it would be doing the House a disservice were I to do so. I will confine myself to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, who talked about his wish that the EU would set an example to other parts of the world on how sovereign states can work together in a post-modern world. That is what the EU used to do. It was an exemplar, an example that people tried to follow. As a result of the mismanagement of the eurozone crisis and a number of internal issues—of which, I am sorry to say, the British problem has been an important one—the European Union has lost that position. I nurse the hope, as I think many other noble Lords do, that if we vote decisively to remain within the European Union, it will be seen as a vote of confidence in the institution and will give renewed confidence to the EU and to the rest of the world in the ability of the EU to fulfil its objectives.

Motion agreed.