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Mr. Gapes: I see the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) jumping up and down in anticipation, but he should wait until I say something about Europe before he intervenes.
Agenda 2000 is now an important consideration; the enlargement of the European Union will have serious financial and political implications for the European institutions and their accountability. The problem is that the political processes are not fast enough to deal with the economic changes that are already happening. That is inevitable; it has happened internationally as a result of globalisation and it is happening in the European Union as a result of the single market and the imminent introduction of the single currency.
I agree with the recent statement of German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer that we should seriously consider how national Parliaments can be represented in the decision-making processes of the European Parliament. He floated the idea of a second chamber made up of national parliamentarians. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament who attended meetings at which parliamentarians from the member states were brought together, I recognise that there is no adequate mechanism for dialogue between national parliamentarians. We are all busy and have our own focus of attention, yet we do not have the information that we need adequately to scrutinise and monitor European legislation. I know that changes are proposed for the way in which the House deals with that, but we need contact with our fellow parliamentarians for a political overview. The proposal by the German Foreign Minister merits serious consideration.
Other remarks by Mr. Fischer in the past few days have given me cause for concern, although I am not clear whether he was speaking as the leader of the German Greens or as the Foreign Minister of the new coalition Government. His idea for a European army will be little more than naive rhetoric if that army is not backed by substantial resources and a commitment to real defence capabilities from other European states.
This country, with the French, provides the European wing of NATO with serious military capabilities; the other EU states together do not provide anything like that commitment. That is one of the reasons why Britain and France have played the leading European role in the coalitions that have been built up to deal with international crises. If the German Government are serious about the development of a stronger European
defence capability, they will have to recognise that that capability must be based not on paper resolutions or words but on financial commitment. However, I see no prospect at the moment of such an increase in resources.
I am wary of any proposal for a stronger European defence capability that is only theoretical, as it will send the wrong signal to the isolationists and nationalists in north America who want drastically to reduce their commitment to global security and to NATO. The issue must still, unfortunately, be sensitively handled. I know that the United States Administration want Europe to play a greater role in the Atlantic alliance--so do I--but that must happen incrementally; it must not be based on grand rhetoric. I want a stronger Euro-Atlantic partnership--a form of left Atlanticism in which Europe has a stronger voice. However, that must be based not on paper resolutions but on reality.
Kosovo has been mentioned, and what happened there, and in the former Yugoslavia generally, shows how far we have to go if we are to get real co-operation quickly. I intervened earlier on my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to refer to a report in yesterday's edition of The Times about mujaheddin fighters being discovered by journalists in Kosovo. That is a worrying development. Clearly, some people have an agenda that will not lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, or to the implementation of the UN resolutions or the agreement brokered by Mr. Holbrooke.
According to the agreement, there are supposed to be elections in Kosovo within nine months to determine the representative body to represent the views of the people there. I cannot see how we can organise elections on any kind of democratic or fair basis when armed gangs are going around the countryside assassinating the police, and shooting people and driving them out of their homes, which they then burn down. They may be representatives of the Kosovo Liberation Army or people from the Serbian armed forces.
We must make sure that the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers are given the protection that they need; otherwise, as has been implied, their arrival in the region will not be as speedy as is necessary to secure the proper verification of the agreement. We might then get into spring, with the thawing of the snow and the potential for renewed conflict, as we saw in Bosnia.
In Bosnia, all sides, including Serbs and Muslims, lied, cheated and carried out atrocities--particularly the Croats. We must be clear that, in Kosovo, there is the potential for real disaster if there is inadequate international support. Stopping the guns going in and stopping freelance mercenary and fanatic groups is part of that process.
The situation in Kosovo has highlighted the need for our armed forces to have adequate capabilities to do their job. There are increasing demands on them, not just in the defence of this country but in the role we play in UN peacekeeping missions and humanitarian work--an increasing function of the Army, the Royal Navy and, occasionally, the Royal Air Force.
It is essential that we have the best possible communications equipment, and here I launch a further plea for the importance of my own constituency in manufacturing the new radiocommunications system for the British Army in the Archer project. Ministers will be aware that I have raised this matter several times in recent
months, and I will continue to do so. I hope that the work that we have done in the UN on such matters in the past few years will be enhanced, and I am sure that it will be.
We face a world in which conflicts are increasingly within states, where it is far more difficult to make decisions as to when or how to intervene. One difficulty is knowing--once one has intervened--how long to stay there, and in what circumstances to get out. It is far easier to make a commitment to send forces into a conflict to keep the sides apart, or in a humanitarian relief operation, than it is to say, "Things are going so badly that we must extract troops." Any commitment could last 15 or 20 years rather than six months or a year.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that underlying any commitment must be the ability to deliver on it? Given that 10 per cent. of our forces in Bosnia were Territorial Army personnel and that the Regular Army is at an all-time low, 5,000 under strength, how will any future engagements be manned?
Mr. Gapes:
There is a limit to what any state can undertake. For example, the Conservative Government chose not to send people to Somalia; despite our historic association with Somaliland, they decided that, because of other commitments, we did not have the capability. I believe that the changes in the strategic defence review will mean that the Territorial Army will be more able to provide support for real military functions; it may be smaller, but it will be better trained, with more highly motivated and committed people willing to take on those functions.
Mr. Corbyn:
Has my hon. Friend considered that it might be a better idea to have a number of troops permanently assigned to UN duties, so that when an emergency comes up--such as the one in Somalia or, more recently, in Rwanda, where more troops could probably have saved many lives--we would not have to have lengthy discussions about the logistics and there would be a straight decision whether the available troops should be deployed?
Mr. Gapes:
That was proposed by Boutros Boutros Ghali in the "Agenda for Peace" document in 1992 or 1993, I believe. At that time, the British Government's response was not positive, but the present Government are more positive about preparatory work. We have only regular forces, but countries with conscripts in their armed forces have a problem because serving abroad is a different commitment from serving for the defence of one's country from within.
The matter needs to be examined, because we cannot be in the position of having to wait up to six months to put together the political consensus to send a multinational force to a region in which people are dying or atrocities are being committed. Political mistakes were made in the United Nations over Rwanda.
The recent agreements in the middle east are most welcome. The Wye Plantation agreement continues the Oslo peace process. I have followed the developments closely, have had discussions with leading players in
Israel and in the Palestinian Authority and have visited the West Bank and Gaza as well as Israel, and I am delighted--and surprised, because I did not think that it would happen--that the right-wing Likud Government have endorsed the implementation of this phase of the process.
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