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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. William Waldegrave) : I know of the hon. Member's commitment to this cause. However, could he draw the attention of his colleagues in the European Parliament to this matter? The European Democratic group has twice tried to set up a fund, which it wants to call the European democracy fund, to do exactly that, but the Socialist group, including the hon. Gentleman's colleagues in the European Parliament, has twice blocked it.
Mr. Robertson : I was in the European Parliament last week when the debate took place and the decision was taken. A number of distinctions have to be drawn. First, there is already aid to political parties in the European Parliament, and the Socialist group has made a gesture of levying its members and adding to that levy to help the promotion of the political process in eastern Europe. Secondly, some political parties represented in the European Parliament might have an affinity with organisations abroad which should perhaps not be the beneficiaries of public money. I understand that the various parties in the European Parliament continue to talk about the issue. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have a deep interest in the subject, and I intend to pursue it irrespective of what anyone outside the House intends to do.
The people of eastern Europe are in the process of rejecting many of the easy stereotypes on offer from the Right and also perhaps from the Left in the West. The Czechoslovakian Prime Minister was quoted last week as saying that there would be no Thatcherite revolution in that country. The Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying that "there would be a privatisation programme, but it would be pursued slowly."
By saying that, he was perhaps rejecting all the ideologies that are being peddled today, and that may be the key to their future.
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As we face the new dawn in East-West relations, I hope that Britain, in spite of our Prime Minister's gross lack of judgment, will be able to play a major role in building a secure future. Certainly, the Labour party believes in the importance of multilateral processes, in the forging of friendships and alliances and in consensus for the benefit of all and not the ego of one. When the Labour party comes to office, that will be our guiding principle.Britain has some unique and irreplaceable assets. For example, the British Council, which already has an organisation in place in eastern Europe, has allowed Britain, almost alone, to channel immediate technical, scientific and educational help to those countries. The council's over-stretched staff are already providing practical assistance and English language courses where there is an urgent need.
The BBC world service has played a remarkable, perhaps even an historic, role in the liberation of eastern Europe. From every country reports have come about how the objective, fair and truthful news from the world service has sustained and informed millions of people, and kept hope alive amid years of oppression. Surely, it is therefore now time for the Government to recognise that huge achievement and to provide the trivial sums that would give life to world service television.
Britain has the assets and, in spite of the Government we have a proud record of rising to a challenge. The British people deserve the chance to participate in the bounty that the present situation presents. Dare we hope that our Government can eventually, even belatedly, rise to the expectations of their own people?
5.33 pm
Mr. Edward Heath (Old Bexley and Sidcup) : We are grateful to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for giving us such a wide-ranging and comprehensive review of the present situation, however quickly it may be changing. I hope to be able to comply in two ways with Mr. Speaker's request that we should make brief interventions in the debate. I admit straight away that I do not propose to be as comprehensive as my right hon. Friend ; and I do not wish to state views on the disarmament process which is going on, because I think that there is a better chance of success now, and my right hon. Friend has the matter completely in hand.
On the question of the future of NATO, I must confess that I do not understand some of the language now being used on both sides of the Atlantic. It is said that NATO must change from a military function into a political framework. I confess that I do not know what help a political framework in NATO would be. I do not see what purpose it would serve, because we already have a political framework. Therefore, I think that we should drop the idea that NATO is just going to become a political organisation. We shall still require a united defence in Europe. We had better concentrate on that.
I was slightly disturbed when my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said that that would enable NATO to look after defence in other parts of the world--although he did cast that remark away lightly. I strongly object to that. NATO has a European purpose which will continue, although perhaps in a more limited form, but I could not support a NATO in Europe which regarded itself as the policeman of the rest of the world. Nor do I think that that would be acceptable to what were formerly the colonial
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territories. They would regard the European powers in a new form as trying to dominate their independence in other parts of the world. I have no desire to see Europe try to sort out what is happening in Colombia with drug runners, or what is happening in South Africa, or anywhere else in the world. I think that South Africa is of relevance, not just for the reason that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) mentioned, but because we have opted out of the views of our partners in the European Community, and the views of the Americans on the other side of the Atlantic. The important thing is the consequence that that will have for our relations with those two groups when dealing with the new situation in Europe.I hope that I can be brief about the new situation in Europe, because it seems to me that all sorts of objections--or if not objections, strange constructions and interpretations--are being put on the situation unnecessarily. I hope that I will not be thought arrogant in any way if I say that what is required seems to me obvious--as obvious as it is to the eastern European countries. First, German reunification is inevitable and the eastern European countries recognise it. The hon. Member for Hamilton said that this was a new dawn. It is certainly an era of hope. Therefore, when we say yes, but only with careful consideration, a great deal of reservation and several conferences, those countries will say, "There you are--the British once again are trying to slow the whole thing down or prevent it from happening." The Foreign Secretary knows as much about the subject as any hon. Member--certainly since 1965, when he was my private secretary. He understands these attitudes and that they are unfortunate. We need to say, "Yes, we share your hope and we are going to work out how to help you." That may seem to be only a slight difference, but it will be vital for their attitude towards us.
German reunification is inevitable and we have always recognised that. Sometimes we said that we believed in it because we thought that it would never happen. If that was the case, it is now going to happen, and we must accept it. What are the problems? It is up to the two Germanies to settle how they come together. It is not up to us as occupying powers, or interfering busybodies from outside. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary mentioned the formula of four plus two. I understood that, at the recent conference, it was changed to two plus four. That is important. The two refers to the two Germanies, who will work out how they come together. Then the four powers will discuss with them the implications of unification for the four-powers. As far as the three powers are concerned, we have long recognised that, when the two Germanies come together, that is their affair and we no longer have an interest from that point of view. Moscow has also come to recognise that situation in the past few days. Therefore, the two Germanies will settle what they are going to do, and the four powers will acknowledge that. That is not difficult and there is no problem about it. It will not take long. I heard the Czech Prime Minister say the other day that he had asked for the withdrawal of Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia. Mr. Gorbachev's reply was that he would certainly consider it, but, of course, it would be a lengthy operation and might take more than a year if he decided to do it. The Czech Prime Minister said, "I replied to him,
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Well, it only took you a day to put them in, so why should it take longer than a day to take them out?'" That is a very practical approach.The East German Prime Minister, Mr. Modrow, has said, "We have little time : do get on and allow us to achieve our purpose." Why is there so little time? Why is Chancellor Kohl saying, even before the general election, that various things, one of which I shall discuss in a moment, must be done? The reason is that they have fears. What is Chancellor Kohl's fear? Every month, 70,000 East Germans are still crossing his border. West Germany has done a magnificent job in accommodating East Germans since they started to come in through Hungary, but an extra 70,000 each month pose a problem. A second problem is that both Chancellor Kohl and the East German Foreign Minister are worried about the state of the East German economy, which they believe may collapse at any moment. In that case their problems will be infinitely greater : there is no time to be lost.
What is the third fear? The possibility that there may still be a hard core of Communists in eastern Germany who will attempt to reverse the process cannot be overlooked. There is no time to be lost : they must get on with it, and that is what they will try to do directly after the election. I see no problem, and no need for lengthy investigations.
It is interesting to note that Chancellor Kohl has proposed the introduction of a unified currency as soon as possible, preferably before the election. I heard him make a very well balanced speech the other day. Having completed the economic part, he looked up, smiled and said, "So, you see, I think that I can say without fear of contradiction that Ludwig Erhard has triumphed over Karl Marx." That was a very revealing statement.
What the Chancellor said took me back to 1948, when Erhard--whom I knew well, both as Finance Minister and as Chancellor--reformed the German currency. He said, "Our marks are useless : we shall revalue them. If we take 10 for one, we shall have the dynamic to create the new Germany." It worked. East Germany--which now has an anomaly of four marks to one and a black market of 10 to one--must reform its currency in a similar way to obtain the same dynamic that Erhard produced for western Germany. I do not see why we should query that, or why it should pose any problem for the Community.
In a moving intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow)--who has now left the Chamber--asked for a guarantee tha the British taxpayer would never be involved. What does that mean? Despite all our protestations that we want freedom for the eastern Empire--that we want it to have its own way, to be successful and to enjoy a higher standard of living--the only issue that appears to concern my hon. Friend is the need for the British taxpayer not to become involved.
Of course western Germany will provide the larger part of what is necessary ; indeed, it is already doing so. Already German business men from the big firms are roaring around eastern Germany, establishing their plants and distribution systems and offering capital. Perhaps we should mention that to one or two British business men ; after all, East Germany is not all that far away. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary says that we should have discussions about the possibility of our parliamentary parties' taking part in political activities in the east European countries, and showing them how to proceed. They are already doing that. The Socialist parties
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are roaring around those countries. All that we have to do is persuade the Conservatives in this country to do the same. The Conservatives in France are already doing it, as are those in the European Parliament. I see no need to make a great fuss ; let us get on with trying to persuade those countries that, when elections take place in less than a month's time, they should vote for the party that we support. Opposition Members can do the same.We have no problem with regard to the European Community, because of the special provision in the treaties that East Germany should always be given preference. It has been given preference, and will continue to receive it. That leads automatically to union, and there is no need for long arguments about it. As for the other eastern European countries, we must recognise-- perhaps, as a Back Bencher, I can say this more easily than others can-- that, after 40 years of Communist domination and repression from Moscow, they have no experience of government or administration : they do not know how to run an organisation. They talk of a market economy, but they have no idea how to produce one. When we ask, "Where will your investment come from? You have no savings, because under Moscow you were not allowed any. How will you create a market economy?", they do not know the answer.
That is a frightening feature of the present developments, and we must help in every way that we can. The east European countries welcome management studies, and we ought to help with investment as much as we can. The Community is already organising that, and we should play a large part ; we should assist those countries to develop their economies in a way that will enable them eventually to become members of the European Community.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Cannock and Burntwood) : I hope that it will reassure my right hon. Friend to know that the Adam Smith Institute is working very hard to ensure that the economies of eastern Europe fully understand the benefits to be derived from a liberal market economy.
Mr. Heath : Nothing that has happened at the Adam Smith Institute has given me any reassurance at all. If, after 10 years, it is thought desirable for the emerging eastern European countries also to enjoy interest rates of 15 per cent., mortgage rates of 15.5 per cent., balance- of-payments deficits of £20 billion and inflation rates of 8 per cent., very well : let the Adam Smith Institute go and tell them, and we shall jolly soon see that they are taking no notice. The problem with the eastern European countries is considerable.
Let me say a word about the Soviet position, which seems all too often to be overlooked. What we are discussing depends to a large extent on Mr. Gorbachev's retaining his present position--or, if someone else replaces him, on that person's following the same policies. We are entitled to have doubts about that. Indeed, any Government would be very unwise to ignore the possibility of a change--an attempt to return to an earlier system.
What has happened to Mr. Gorbachev? He set out to improve the Soviet economy to such an extent that the Soviets would welcome him and his supporters as their saviours--a laudable ambition. I am convinced--in fact, Mr. Gromyko has told me--that he believed that no change in the political organisation would be required.
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Once people were properly fed and housed, they would say, "This is a good political organisation." However, the economic situation has worsened in the five years of Mr. Gorbachev's regime ; the result has been the emerging demand for political rights in the Baltic states, the eastern European countries, the southern states of Azerbaijan and Russia itself. There is increasing evidence that support for Mr. Gorbachev is waning considerably.I talked the other day to some Russians from Leningrad. When I asked them for their comments on this country, they replied that Mr. Gorbachev seemed to be infinitely more popular abroad than at home. I said, "That does happen to politicians from time to time." We must recognise that all our plans to help depend on Mr. Gorbachev's position being maintained, and on the retention of the present Soviet policy line.
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) : Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the forces of reaction in the Soviet Union would be strengthened --thus undermiing Mr. Gorbachev's position--by the lack of a flexible response from NATO and from this country? The more aggressive our defence posture, the more likely are the generals and other reactionary forces in the USSR to reassert themselves.
Mr. Heath : If by "flexible" the hon. Gentleman means a balanced arrangement for disarmament, I agree with him. That is what the Foreign Secretary has said. That must be the basis of any negotiations between the two sides. However, we must also recognise that those whom we describe as diehards in the soviet Union are concerned about the break-up of the Soviet empire. When he started along this path, did Mr. Gorbachev deliberately intend to break up the Soviet empire? It is difficult to believe that he did. In that case, will anyone who does not hold the same view intervene and say, "This has got to stop"?
Mr. Jim Lester (Broxtowe) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that West Germany recognised the need immediately to satisfy some part of the consumer demand in the Soviet Union in order to reinforce Mr. Gorbachev's position? It made a grant and transferred food immediately so that the people of the Soviet Union would recognise the benefits of perestroika. Ought we not to press our Government to follow the German lead?
Mr. Heath : Chancellor Kohl has said that he will not accept neutrality. That is absolutely right. We should back him. That would mean having German forces and NATO forces, if he requires them, in a united Germany. I do not believe that it is a realistic or workable proposition that there should be NATO forces in what is now the western part of Germany and Soviet forces in the eastern part, once there is a united Germany. No Government could operate under such conditions.
I deplore the comparison that is made between the present Germany and the past Germany of the 1930s. Much as I admire the chief rabbi, I cannot support his statement that Jewish people from this country should be present at all the negotiations. The Jewish people here do not form a country ; Israel has no status in this connection. Germany believes--as does Japan and many other countries--that in the modern world it is not military power which is of the utmost importance. Japan has become very successful through the exercise of economic power. We wish that we had greater economic power.
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West Germany realises that, given time for the recapitalisation of East Germany, a united country of 80 million people will be the most powerful country, economically, in the Community.I was glad to hear the Foreign Secretary's reference to France. We want a balance in the Community. The obvious balance is this country and France. That was recognised long ago by General de Gaulle and President Pompidou. It is still recognised today. However, we must take a positive line and work for it. If we persist in making provisos about this and that in the Community, the French will not accept it. There is the closest relationship between Paris and Bonn. Everything is done by consultation between Paris and Bonn. They work out their policy together, including their defence policy. As for Poland and Czechoslovakia, we agreed long ago--with Chancellor Brandt of Germany taking a large part in the negotiations--that the frontiers would never be the pre-war frontiers ; they would be the post -war frontiers. That is now accepted by Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Foreign Secretary was right to emphasise that the ethnic German groups in those countries would like to be within the boundaries of a united Germany. The welcome that Chancellor Kohl received from the Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia demonstrates that fact.
Similar problems have been solved in many parts of Europe. The Foreign Secretary mentioned some. Italy is another case. It has had similar problems, but they have been resolved through peaceful negotiation. We could do the same. As the standard of living improves in those countries, national and ethnic differences will be greatly reduced. I see no real problem over that. With agreement over the Polish-Czechoslovakian boundaries, another obstacle is removed. We must hasten the completion of the Community arrangements as fast as possible. That is what Germany wants. Those who say that we must slow up and wait for the eastern European countries to get ready to join us are wrong. It took Spain and Portugal 10 years, after General Franco and President Salazar went, before they were in a position to negotiate with the Community. Their economic position was infinitely stronger than that of the eastern European countries today. Whatever one thought of General Franco--and I never thought very much of him--during his period in office, the middle class grew and became extremely well trained. The banking system was well organised ; so was the industrial system. That enabled Spain, after 10 years of democratic government, to join the Community. It will take the eastern European countries at least 10 years to reach the point at which they can become members.
Our job is fully to develop the Community as quickly as possible ; the eastern European countries recognise that that is in their interest. Then we should be able to give them more help. They will be granted associate member status and then, if they want it, full membership. That is the biggest safeguard of all for those who are worried about the place that a new, united Germany would have inside Europe and inside the Community. That is where we must put our trust. We have a major part to play in that process.
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5.55 pmMr. Denis Healey (Leeds, East) : It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). It is a somewhat sentimental occasion for me. We first became politically involved with each other more than half a century ago--then, as now, holding very different political views--because we were fighting a Conservative Prime Minister who believed in appeasing Nazi Germany. Today, more than half a century later, we are united in fighting a Conservative Prime Minister who is obstructing the creation of a unified, democratic Germany. I also congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on a more recent anniversary, which he celebrated yesterday--the 40th anniversary of his entry into Parliament- -and on the magnanimity that he showed in allowing the Prime Minister to attend the celebrations.
I was very interested, if I may say so without offence, in much that the Foreign Secretary had to say. Some of it will bear careful reading. I was particularly interested when he advocated minimum deterrence and a follow- up to the current negotiations for a conventional forces in Europe agreement. I only hope that he took more trouble to clear those passages with the Prime Minister than he did with his recent speech on turning tanks into tractors, of which I thoroughly approve.
I very much agree with the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup who feels alarm and stupefaction at the Foreign Secretary's idea that NATO, having lost its enemy in Europe, should look for enemies in other parts of the world and try to expand its geographical influence. I do not think that the Foreign Secretary will find many takers for that idea in the Community- -least of all, incidentally, in a united Germany.
I intend to concentrate on two issues--first, the implications of what is going on in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union for the present level of defence spending in Britain and NATO, and secondly, the implications for our security and that of the West of those same events. We all agree that, whether or not we foresaw the nature of what was going to happen, we were taken by surprise by the extraordinary acceleration of the speed at which it happened. The Foreign Secretary has had to admit that the remarks that he made a few weeks ago are totally irrelevant as he speaks to us today. No one was prepared and the nature of the change was far more fundamental than we recognised.
The end of the cold war and the impact of glasnost on the western part of the Communist world has released pressures that had been bottled up for 40 years--in the case of the Soviet Union for 70 years. The explosive force of those pressures has produced change at a rate that it is very difficult to follow and which, as the Foreign Secretary admitted, could lead to many dangers as well as to many opportunities. We have to ask ourselves whether any of the possible dangers--they are not all certain dangers, by any means, yet--are grounds for maintaining the present level of defence spending, or the present structure of western defence in NATO. I would suggest not. The worst that could happen in the Soviet Union would be that the midsummer Congress of the Communist party produces the rejection of central control by the Communist parties in most of the Soviet Republics and perhaps produces a split into three of the Communist party of Russia itself--one under Gorbachev, a Left-wing
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or radical party under Yeltsin and another under Ligachev or Gidaspov which is more conservative. That is all perfectly possible. One possible explanation of Gorbachev's haste to develop new powers as President of the Soviet Union is that he wants to detach himself from the Communist party altogether and to detach the state from the Communist party to run a more normal system which would have much more in common with the West. that is bound to have implications for the unity of the Soviet Union. It seems almost certain now that the three Baltic republics whose incorporation has been recognised by the Soviet Government to have been illegal will be independent by the end of this year. Georgia and the Central Asian Republic may wish to follow shortly afterwards.There is much speculation as to whether Gorbachev or his successor, if there is one, would seek to stop that process by the use of force. I remember Arbatov, who was one of his advisers, telling a body in Harvard last year that he would react to demands for secession in the same way as Abraham Lincoln did in the United States. But Mr. Arbatov forgot that the American civil war cost the United States more deaths than all the wars that followed, including Vietnam, at a time when the United States had only one seventh of the population it has today. The American civil war took place on the other side of the world, where there were no neighbouring countries capable of intervening.
It would be very different if there were a civil war particularly in central Asia. The counter-productive effect of military intervention in stimulating nationalism in Georgia and Azerbaijan is already a great warning. I doubt very much whether any Soviet regime under Gorbachev or any successor would follow that path. If it did, the result would be to destroy the Soviet Union as a force in world politics for at least a generation. It is certainly most unlikely, under any hypothesis that I can imagine, to produce a military threat to western Europe or to Britain. It would remove the very possibility of a military threat from that source.
Nevertheless, there are real dangers in eastern Europe. The liberation of the peoples of eastern Europe threatens the new balkanisation of eastern Europe. Yet we all know--this is one reason why the first world war broke out--that it is impossible to draw boundaries for nation states in eastern Europe without including powerful minorities in each state which, if persecuted, will rebel against it. We see signs of that already in Yugoslavia with the Albanians, the Serbs and the Croats, and there were many signs recently in Romania with the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania. I very much hope that that process will not develop, but I fear that the economic catastrophe facing some of the new regimes could produce some terrifying political forces and developments.
Even if the worst came to the worst, however, those developments could not sensibly be met by British defence spending or NATO intervention. The Foreign Secretary's idea that we should try to develop instruments inside the Helsinki arrangements to enable that body to be used for conflict resolution in eastern Europe is excellent. There could be quite a useful role for the Helsinki instrument in mediating between Greece and Turkey, as eastern Europe is not alone in having such national conflicts.
Those developments are not likely to present a threat to the West such as the Warsaw pact from the days of Stalin to the days of Brezhnev undoubtedly presented in
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capability, although there is still an argument about how far it presented that threat in intention. I cannot understand the Government's reluctance to recognise that the need for drastic cuts in British defence spending is on us and there is no room for manoeuvre. I am sure that the Foreign Secretary regularly talks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who desperately needs to save money somewhere to use it for productive purposes in restoring our ruined and eroding social and economic infrastructure, not to mention helping the countries of eastern Europe. Economic aid to eastern Europe would do far more for our security than building up NATO. With regard to German unification, on which the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup spent some time, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that German unification is inevitable in the very near future and that there is nothing that anybody outside can or should do to prevent it. In less than a month from now, there will be a new Parliament and a new Government in East Germany, and its first decision may well be to reconstitute the three federal Lander in East Germany, which may simultaneously declare themselves part of the Federal Republic, as they are empowered to do under a constitution that we as the victorious allies endorsed. If that does not happen, the people of East Germany may continue to vote with their feet, producing unification by migration rather than by political decision, so we should not worry about that as a threat.There will be some enormously difficult problems for the Germans, and later for other countries, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup that the threat of a united Germany--if it is a threat--will be economic, not military, and that the daftest thing that we could do would be to restrict Germany's armed forces and thus allow it to have the same glorious freedom from defence burdens in competing with us from which Japan has derived so much benefit in the past 40 years.
Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have spent many months in Germany since the last war. I cannot speak for East Germany, but West Germany today is by far the least nationalistic of all the larger European powers. It is far less nationalistic than Britain under the present Prime Minister ; it is far less nationalistic than France under President Mitterrand, never mind President de Gaulle ; and far less nationalistic in many respects even than Italy. The one thing that could revive nationalism in Germany would be an attempt by the former occupying powers to continue acting as occupying powers. That is the danger that the Prime Minister's recent behaviour has aroused.
I know that the Foreign Secretary agrees with me, because he has tried his best to soften the asperities of some of the nonsense that she has talked, but that has not stopped some of the British tabloid press following her lead. That is followed by the German tabloid press, and before we know where we are we have conjured up the very dangers that we were trying to prevent.
Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East) : Does the right hon. Gentleman recoil, like others, from the rather offensive suggestion that the German people were guilty of crimes against humanity in the second world war? All that, vis-a-vis the Nazis and the wrongdoers, was dealt with through the Nuremberg trials process. The German people
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were not guilty, and were never adjudged to be so ; moreover, 87 per cent. of the current German population were born after the war or were youngsters at the time.Mr. Healey : Conservative voters were not responsible for what the Government are doing. But it is idle and dangerous to ignore the fact that Germans performed the most awful atrocities during the last world war, and that is not forgotten.
The obscenity of Nazism is a disease which could be caught in any country, if the conditions are right. If I may say so as a declining person--[ Hon. Members :-- "Never!"] Thank you very much--I was inviting that response. The appeal of Communism in Europe just before and after the war was that capitalism in Europe had produced Hitler, Mussolini and the second world war. That was a powerful factor in the appeal of Communism in western Europe, France and Italy and in eastern Europe but, thank God, everything has changed since then. We must not forget that the evils that we fought in Germany in the last world war were present in many countries but, thank God, the conditions that allowed them to take over did not exist.
Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Ealing, Southall) rose --
Mr. Healey : With respect, I must get on.
It will be vital to maintain stability and security in the new Europe. The dangers are very real. None of the cold war structures is appropriate. NATO's original military role disappeared with its enemies. No one now believes that there is a threat from the Warsaw pact--as the Secretary of State said, it no longer exists--nor is there a threat from the Soviet Union. The bloc mentality, which is an essential part of NATO, has no role in our approach to the new world.
We need a new security system. What sort of security system should it be? It cannot be based on NATO in its present form. The American role in NATO will soon be unacceptable to the Americans as well as to the Russians, and there are already signs of that in Congress. Even the American Secretary of State, Mr. Baker--the Foreign Secretary's colleague--said the other day that perhaps a united Germany should have some associated membership of NATO. That is what he said, but as the Foreign Secretary knows, when he got back he was compelled by the chinovniks and apparatchiks to withdraw it. From time to time, the Foreign Secretary has been compelled by higher forces to withdraw things. Nevertheless, Secretary Baker meant what he said when he uttered those words, just as the Foreign Secretary meant what he said when he said that we should be turning tanks into tractors. I give him credit for sincerity in his first thoughts.
In its present form, NATO is not appropriate. It is difficult to shake off the bloc mentality. As the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup said, people as disparate as Mr. Bush and
Secretary-General Worner have been saying recently that it must adopt a political role if it does not have a military role. The question is what political role.
Mr. Hurd : The key point that the right hon. Gentleman is skirting around in his fascinating analysis is the presence of United States troops in Europe. The President of the United States, Mr. Baker and German politicians from the three main parties, and ourselves, for what that is worth,
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are united in saying that it is important for European security that there should be significant United States forces in Europe. They are an essential component of the defence side of NATO, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and I believe should be preserved. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe in that?Mr. Healey : I believe that United States troops need to be here under the NATO umbrella. The right hon. Gentleman must admit that many Germans, in opposition and in government, do not want American forces in Germany. No one I know in Germany wants American nuclear weapons in Germany to drop on East Germans, on Lech Walesa or on Vaclav Havel. Yet the Government are still yammering away about replacing Lance by a weapon with a range which would enable it to hit not only Germans but Germany's eastern neighbours. Can idiocy be carried any further than that?
With respect to the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, the European Community cannot provide a framework. The plain fact is that it is dominated by West Germany. The best proof of that is the fact that, when the Bundesbank raised interest rates last October, although Britain is not a member of the exchange rate mechanism the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to raise interest rates 40 minutes later in the middle of the Tory party conference, having spent £2,000 million of our reserves trying to avoid that decision. Germany will be the decisive factor in the European Community so long as the Community is restricted to its present membership.
I accept the points that the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup made about the difficulties of bringing all the east European democracies into the Community as soon as they ask, but there is no reason why Austria should not join today. Ireland, as a neutral country, has joined and if, as is more than likely, the next Swedish Government decides to join--Swedish industry and finance have already voted with their funds to join the Community--another neutral country can do so.
Neutrality is a buzz word which has lost all its meaning. A country can be neutral only if there are two alliances or blocs to be neutral between. German neutrality is as irrelevant as Swiss, Swedish or Austrian neutrality in the new world into which we are moving. The Community must expand north and east of its present frontiers as fast as possible to take in the Scandinavian countries as soon as they want to join--none of the problems to which the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup referred apply to them--and countries such as Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia as soon as possible. The Community should make it plain that that is its intention. That would offer a framework in which a united Germany could occupy a more comfortable position than in the limited framework of the west European community.
I do not believe that the European Community will ever form a suitable security structure to contain Germany. Various attempts are being made to do that--I tried to do so a little through the Western European Union when I was Secretary of State for Defence 20 years ago--but the plain fact is that the disagreements on strategic matters between the major European powers--particularly between Germany, Britain and France--exclude that.
The Foreign Secretary misled the House about the four-power arrangement--it is two plus four, not four plus two. The only role of the four-power meeting will be to
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liquidate its residual responsibilities in Berlin and to reaffirm frontiers which have already been embodied in treaties. It is an unsuitable body to deal with major problems, because it excludes all Germany's eastern neighbours, particularly Poland and Czechoslovakia, which for historical and other reasons are deeply concerned about Germany's place in the new Europe.The only conceivable structure that could be developed for the new European security system, as Mr. Genscher said a few days ago in Dublin and with which the Foreign Secretary appeared to agree when he signed the declaration, is the Helsinki conference on security and co-operation in Europe framework. We are far from ready for it yet, but Mr. Genscher was right in saying that it was the most important framework, and the Foreign Secretary was right to join his colleagues in saying that it was fundamental. I was glad that the Dublin meeting agreed that there should be a working committee in midsummer to prepare for the summit of the CSCE, and it has already been suggested that it should accept responsibility for national conflict resolution.
As to the problems facing us now, I agree that they are not insoluble, but many of them will have solutions in which we can play little part. At the moment, it is impossible to devise a solution for many of them because the position is changing so fast. Many countries are marching together to confront the challenges. It is extremely depressing that, instead of Britain being in the lead in that march our Prime Minister seems to be locked in a time warp. I find it difficult to understand how she can go around talking of how we have won victory in the cold war and saying, "It is all due to me, the British Prime Minister," and the next moment saying, "Absolutely nothing in the world has changed--we must go on exactly as we have done for the last 40 years." The Minister of State, of course, is far too intelligent not to recognise the contradictions in that extraordinary posture, but I do not ask him to agree with me. A couple of days ago, the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) referred to the Prime Minister's paranoid isolationism. There seems to be an odd element of mental disturbance. Like all his predecessors, the Foreign Secretary, who is very able and experienced, has to spend most of his time battling with No. 10 instead of dealing with the problems. The only difference between the present incumbent and his predecessors is that the right hon. Gentleman seems to be on librium. The Secretary of State for Defence knows that the services are crying out for him to get down to a drastic review of what is going on. Meanwhile, people are voting with their feet against the present set-up, and natural wastage is being overtaken by the fall in re- engagements.
While the rest of Europe is marching to confront the new challenges, the Prime Minister is shuffling along in the gutter in the opposite direction, like an old bag lady, muttering imprecations at anyone who catches her eye. It is not a noble role. She has managed to produce an extraordinary degree of unanimity against her in the press. I follow the newspapers ; occasionally I write for them myself. Last Sunday, I was fascinated to find that the editorials in The Observer, The Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph were all bashing the Prime Minister. She is the only person in the world who could get Peregrine Worsthorne, Andrew Neil and Donald Trelford in the same bed at the same time. All I can say is, "Eat your heart out, Pamella Bordes."
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The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup will recall that the Prime Minister deposed him as a result of what the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) called a peasants' revolt. As the poll tax has produced a peasants' revolt, might not the time have come for another peasants' revolt by Conservative Members? There are signs that the revolting peasants are revolting over the poll tax, but that affects only their seats in Parliament. What the Prime Minister is doing to Britain's foreign and defence policy affects Britain's role and future in the world. So I say to the peasants on the Government Benches, "Go to it."6.24 pm
Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : The first four fifths of the speech of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) were fabulously interesting and drew on his enormous experience. The last fifth has to be described as vintage Healey ; it made enjoyable listening but added not one jot to the sum of human wisdom or to the progress of the debate.
The House will have enjoyed the buoyant optimism of my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) about what is happening in eastern Europe. I think we all share that optimism. There is a reason for the sense of elation which my right hon. Friend must feel, with his distinguished war record. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Leeds, East and many others who fought in that terrible war must understandably feel tremendous elation that we are at last seeing the achievement of what they thought they were fighting for--the emergence of a free Europe of republics and kingdoms working together in democratic structures. At last that is in sight, having come at a speed which few people dreamed of.
The main point of my intervention is that there are also considerable dangers ahead. In fact, the 1990s in many ways will be more dangerous for our security than the 1980s. I do not mean that one does not welcome the chaos and fluidity that followed the end of the cold war, but there are enormous threats, none the easier for not being identified as threats. We are not clear where they all come from. They are there. If we dismiss them and say that keeping up our guard is nostalgic, we could all pay a terrible price.
I do not deny for a moment, nor did my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, that we need to adapt our collective defence structures and, incidentally, our territorial defence structures, in the 1990s. It would be ridiculous if we were like the French general staff in the 1930s, assuming that the collective defence structures of a previous era, aimed against the enemies of a previous era, are suitable for the 1990s ; clearly they are not. We should put fully aside the Maginot mentality which might lead people to assume that we need do nothing except reinforce the defence structures of the past. There are serious new dangers to which we should be fully alert before we begin to talk about spending the peace dividend or gaily dismantling the defence budget or the fundamental political support which defence spending needs and which has been won by serious statesmen over many years. It is easy to throw all that away, but it would be dangerous to do so.
What are the dangers that one darkly talks about? Let me be the first to admit that one cannot see every detail.
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Nationalism and tribalism lurk in countries whose names we have forgotten or which have not appeared on maps for the last 70 years ; suddenly their aspirations are appearing again. There are all those dangers, which can be very bloody.There are bigger dangers. First, there is Russia. I mean Russia and not the Soviet Union. It is still an enormous European country stretching back into Asia, with a population of hundreds of millions but possibly shorn of many of the autonomous republics, the trans-Caucasian and Baltic republics which it has built into an empire. Such a country may emerge as a great liberal democracy but the historical record is not good on that score. It has never known democracy.
A great deal of bitterness is building up. The position is getting worse and worse, even with the economic reforms. The Russians and the Moscow economic planners have repeatedly agreed on what they ought to do and repeatedly shied away from doing it. As a result, there is endless piecemeal reform which is making things worse rather than better for perestroika. There are enormous difficulties in that great uncertain republic which has its bitternesses and its own nationalisms. We would be crazy not to understand the great dangers that lie there and not to design our own defence structures and our preparedness for any evils and threats that might come from there. Coming nearer home--and it is very near home, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup reminded us-- there is the question of Germany and the need to see that the amazing events in East Germany are handled in a stabilising and orderly way and do not destabilise not merely the eastern European, but the western European system as well, which brings us up to our own doorstep. My right hon. Friend is right to say that these matters can all be handled quickly and efficiently, but it will also be extremely difficult. Many, including myself in recent months, have under-estimated the extreme dangers and potential instabilities if the matter is not handled quickly.
As Chancellor Kohl, to his credit, spotted early on, there is and remains a threat that the whole East German economy could dive into a vortex of chaos, with desertions and migrations on a scale even bigger than the present 70,000 or 80,000 a month. One can imagine that 1 million or more might try to move across in a day if panic set in and there would be a black hole which could be full of dangers. People say that the East Germans can survive and that they need not worry if there are no dentists in Leipzig. Someone told me that one of the worries was that no parking fines were being collected in East Berlin--although I said that that was not necessarily a reason for leaving the country.
There are more serious worries. One can imagine a total collapse of East German society which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup reminded us, has no leaders of experience among the present leadership. Even those who are likely to be elected on 18 March have no experience of running an open, free-market economy and a free society. The question of Germany must be handled swiftly, and I believe that it will be.
It is fascinating to see that the governor of the Bundesbank who, only three weeks ago, was saying that the idea of monetary union was fantastic, has suddenly
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discovered--perhaps it is unfair to say "suddenly"--that it is a perfectly manageable affair, provided that it is done rapidly. He and other Germans whom I see do not want a Government to be elected in East Berlin on 18 March who then call a national assembly and enter into protracted negotiations with West Germany about the kind of federation that should emerge a few years hence.The bankers want to see something very different and far quicker. They want the three lander, under article 23, simply to submerge themselves in the Bundesrepublik, so that the entire East German state becomes a deutschmark area, with the Bundesrepublik having total control and responsibility for the circulation of currency, the legal system, the tax system, the social system and, in fact, the entire national structure of East Germany. The German Democratic Republic then, in effect, vanishes and ceases to exist separately.
Mr. John Butcher (Coventry, South-West) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are parallels between what happened in Germany in 1945-48 and what may happen in the very near future in eastern Germany? In that period, the point at which Germans discovered that they had a real currency which could buy real goods and had a real value was the point at which their economic miracle began. When that is perceived in East Germany and when the currency is unified, can buy real goods and has a real value, the East Germans, too, will enjoy their parallel economic miracle.
Mr. Howell : I very much hope so. One is always a little wary of historical parallels. I think that it was Balfour who said that history did not repeat itself, but historians repeated each other. My hon. Friend may be right to say that an economic miracle will come in East Germany. It may be achieved if there is a rapid merging of the three lander into the Bundesrepublik under article 23 of the constitution. That must be recognised as the best outcome. In this nation, we must be as helpful as we can. I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Leeds, East that there is nothing that we can do. We can be extremely supportive. In the past, our reputation in the Federal Republic has been high, as the right hon. Gentleman is the first to know because he played a part in that. As the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) said, it was British minds and energy which set up that fabulous success of the Federal Republic. As our views are still listened to, we have a role to play in seeing that the merging of East Germany and the Federal Republic into the new Bundesrepublik--or Deutscherepublik, or whatever it will be called--is handled in an orderly way. We should not be missing on the day when our voice and support are needed.
The second danger in relation to German unification which we have to address is the question of security and defence. It was interesting that, when the Polish Prime Minister, Mr. Mazowiecki, came to see the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs last week--or perhaps the week before--his main message to us as Members of Parliament was that Poland would never wish to see what he called a "neutral" Germany. We can argue about what the word "neutral" now means. However, Mr. Mazowiecki was very concerned about the removal of the allied military presence from western Germany or the emergence of a neutral large German state, which one of
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his aides likened to a ship in a harbour in a storm which had lost its anchor and was banging about knocking everything else in sight. The Poles have a point there. We should recognise the Polish worries, which we were--eventually--right to do in the past. They are usually valid worries. We should do all that we can to see that a more dangerous kind of independent neutrality does not unleash itself in Germany. Perhaps it will not. Perhaps the nation is so anaesthetised against its horrific past that all those fears are unworthy. However, the fear is there and that is why I understand the concern at Ottawa of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and of the former occupying powers about the two German states--which will shortly be one, perhaps as soon as September, some people say. I understand the desire to create a framework or procedure within which the future security position can be discussed.As my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup said, the idea of a united Germany with two thirds in one alliance and a little bit in the other seems absurd. When we said to the Polish Prime Minister that it seemed odd that one might drive through Germany and come across a notice that said, "You are now leaving the protection of NATO and moving into a NATO-free zone," he said that it might seem odd, but we should be innovative and face the fact that there could be a prolonged transition period in which we saw a Soviet military presence--perhaps attenuated--in what is now East Germany and the military presence of the allied powers in the other parts of Germany. He said that the Poles would feel much happier if we could live with that innovation.
We must be ready to accept wholly novel solutions to a wholly novel situation. If one considers it further, one realises that unless one is resigned to seeing a neutral Germany or a Germany from which Americans and perhaps all foreign troops have been removed, one is left with very odd solutions for the time being. Perhaps we shall have to live with them, peculiar and unthinkable as they seem at first.
In the 1990s, the dangers could be different from--but as great as, more varied and, therefore, more frightening than--those we faced in the final stages of the cold war in the 1980s. I want to deal with the approach of the United Kingdom to these matters and its interest in them. In recent months--perhaps in recent years--a certain surprise has crept into the press that the British do not seem to be as fond of the idea of a united states of western Europe or as committed to one particular view of a greater Europe as they should be, and as some people hope that they are.
The surprise is not justified because, as many of us have remarked, it has always been a tradition on this island to be concerned to prevent any idea prevailing of a greater Europe dominated by any one country. We never liked the idea in the past of a greater Germany dominating. We never liked the Bonapartism of the French and we have kept a wary eye on any Soviet Russian imperial ambitions in the past. I do not see any great change in the pattern of the habits and instincts of this island at a basic level.
We are right to want to see a Europe that is not dominated by the grander ideas of the French, which President Mitterrand occasionally puts forward. We certainly do not want European domination by Germany--not that I think that there is any political instinct to achieve that domination in Germany today--and we
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