Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence



Examination of witnesses (Questions 80 - 99)

TUESDAY 30 NOVEMBER 1999

THE RT HON ROBIN COOK, MR EMYR JONES PARRY, CMG and MR NIGEL SHEINWALD

  80. Then on the other side of the coin, what of the non-EU members who are members of NATO—the Norwegians, Iceland, etc.?
  (Mr Cook) With them we are clear that we would want them to feel that they can fully participate in anything that we may do through this mechanism. That is why Britain has constantly asserted that there has to be an opportunity for these countries to be involved in deciding upstream whether or not we should handle a crisis through these European mechanisms and then also involved downstream in carrying it out, for instance in participating in it. In practice, of course, several of these countries are themselves already candidates for the European Union and, therefore, over a period of time will be assimilated into many of them.

  81. You do realise, do you not, Foreign Secretary, that in the North Atlantic Assembly the Americans were expressing some worry and concern over the way this was going and that their views might, in fact, be entirely ignored?
  (Mr Cook) I can assure you the American views are not ignored in any way. It is a matter I have regularly discussed with Madeleine Allbright. We know from our contacts in Washington that there was a degree of satisfaction at the communique from the Anglo-French summit. We have repeatedly assured our American colleagues that we will take care in the structures that we will not duplicate, discriminate or decouple from NATO and that continues to be the joint basis on which we approach it. I would also add that Washington, quite rightly and quite properly, has over a period of time frequently said that it would like Europe to do more and that is exactly what we are proposing. The headline commitment that we are proposing, which we expect to be endorsed at Helsinki, is that the European nations should set themselves a target of being capable of putting a corps level in the field within 60 days and sustaining it for at least a year and that is the kind of enhancement to Europe's capability that is actually welcomed in Washington.

  82. Yes. Being a great friend of America we are not surprised that there is more than one opinion between the President and Capitol Hill and perhaps Mrs Allbright ought to begin carrying the views that she is expressing to you to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but that is hardly your responsibility yet.
  (Mr Cook) But we do try ourselves to make sure we do have open channels of communication to the Congress and Senate and will continue to try and make it clear that this is not in competition with NATO, this is a development which can actually be supportive.

  83. That is very good to hear, but as a last question, in pressing forward with the CFSP, you talked, I believe, about there being an interim committee. Is that going to be set up, when is it likely to be set up, what sort of representation will there be on this, who are we likely to nominate? We seem to know very little about this and any information you can give would be helpful.
  (Mr Cook) We anticipated that in the fullness of time as it developed there would be a Political Security Committee of senior officials, a standing committee in Brussels parallel to the Committee of the Permanent Representatives. It would be there to discuss foreign and security policy as and when the case arose and, of course, if we are going to get into the business of crisis management, we need to have a body whom we can assemble quickly and who are on permanent standby. In the short run, leading up towards that, we will wish to see a committee in place that can be, if you like, a foreshadow to that, and I would hope that a number of countries may actually wish to appoint to that committee the people who may actually take over the job in full committee later on.

  84. Will the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence take the lead on this?
  (Mr Cook) It will be the Foreign Office because this is a Common Foreign and Security Policy matter.

Chairman

  85. Foreign Secretary, to clarify an answer you gave to Sir Peter, you said that the new European apparatus or system would only come into operation when the Alliance as a whole is not engaged?
  (Mr Cook) Yes.

  86. Does that imply that there is a prior stage during which the Alliance would be consulted, that is, the United States would be fully consulted, with an implied veto on the second stage?
  (Mr Cook) I would very much want to warn you off the use of the word "veto" because that creates all sorts of waves in so many different directions, but, of course, the United States would be consulted. Indeed, it would be impossible to conceive of any other way of proceeding because the mechanism which we are proposing depends upon access to NATO assets, both the national assets we have committed to NATO and also some of the joint NATO assets for planning and command of an operation. We can only obtain access to that with the unanimous agreement of all members of NATO, including the United States. Therefore, this has to be by a process of consent and agreement and it cannot be done by a process of defiance.

  87. Does the proposal imply any end to the reduction in military expenditure by the European Allies?
  (Mr Cook) What we have focused on for Helsinki is not a target for input, namely, money to be put into defence, but a target for output, namely, how that actually produces a real military asset for us to deploy, and our own concern is that there needs to be more of a focus on rapid, flexible, mobile units which can actually be used in response to a crisis, and focusing on that is more important than focusing on the bottom budget line. It is for the countries themselves to draw the conclusion as to whether their budget needs to be re-assessed or whether they can do it within that budget.

Mr Chidgey

  88. Chairman, you have actually picked up some of the points I wanted to ask the Foreign Secretary, but to take it a stage further, this last issue about assets available to be used to strengthen the Western European Union, I think you said, and also the rapid reaction discussions with France: you very clearly made the point that these were assets that would be deployed rather than creating a standing army and one understands that, but given that our own armed forces are perhaps one of the leaders in the concept of rapid reaction, flexibility and so on, and, therefore, we are already doing a great deal more than other Member States, and the fact that we are already suffering tremendous overstretch in our own armed forces, is it not absolutely clear that if we are going to play an extra role here we are going to have to spend considerably more on defence in this country? There is not a lot of slack left here.
  (Mr Cook) No, is the answer to that. I would strongly put out a marker there, first of all, that we already spend more as a percentage of GDP than many of our European Allies. Secondly, we have already been through the Strategic Defence Review, which concluded on the budget for some time to come of our armed forces, but within that did give—and on this you are right—the priority to rapid, flexible, mobile forces which would be appropriate for crisis management, and that reflected the fact that the Defence Review was very much foreign policy-led. That Strategic Defence Review is actually widely admired among our other European partners and many of them are now seeking in the wake of Kosovo to absorb those lessons for themselves.

  89. I understand that, Foreign Secretary, and I remember you speaking on the foreign affairs aspect of the Queen's Speech only last week and you spoke at some length stressing the point of the under-utilisation of the armed forces used in the European Union compared to the expenditure that goes in, but the point is that I got the very strong impression that through the Strategic Arms Review, for example, we are already much more efficient in the use of our defence assets than other nations, so I cannot quite see where the additional assets are going to come from that are being under-used at present in this country, because they are clearly not?
  (Mr Cook) I am not sure the word "efficient" is the right word here, but many of our partners have a different defence posture which does not give them that flexibility or that rapid mobile response. Indeed, I think it was an interesting experiment for a number of them to discover how difficult it was to move their forces to Kosovo. Without any change in the bottom figure on the budget, without raising any question of efficiency, I think there are things that they can do to change their posture which would give them a greater capacity to take part in such operations.

  90. Does that include ourselves?
  (Mr Cook) I do not think that we are the prime problem here because, as you yourself said, we have made quite a lot of progress towards this, but we are not complacent and if there are other ways we can learn lessons from Kosovo we are certainly going to do so.

  91. But the implication to me certainly is that we are going to have to put more in if we are going to drive the whole thing forward?
  (Mr Cook) No. First of all, I do not accept that in the case of Britain, which is one of the higher spenders, but secondly, I do think that we are approaching this from the wrong end. The important question is not how much you are putting in but what are you getting out. If you tot up the military budgets of the European Member States, collectively we are spending 60 per cent of the American defence budget and it is not immediately apparent that we get 60 per cent of the military assets. May I just add that I am advised, in response to Peter's question, that our intention would be to appoint our Deputy Political Director to the interim committee.

  Sir Peter Emery: Thank you, that is helpful.

Mr Chidgey

  92. I have two more questions, Chairman. The first one concerns the arms embargo agreed, I think, between European Union Member States to Indonesia for, I think, a three-month period—
  (Mr Cook) Four.

  93. Four, which I believe ends on 17 December?
  (Mr Cook) January.

  94. The point, of course, is, Foreign Secretary, will there be, as part of the IGC, a meeting to extend that embargo?
  (Mr Cook) Not as part of the Helsinki IGC. This is a matter for the General Affairs Council to determine, probably at its January meeting. Of course, one should stress that it would require unanimity for a fresh period. It is for the General Affairs Council to decide, in the light of events in January. In some regards we have made very good progress since the embargo was introduced. At the time it was introduced Indonesia had still not accepted the international force to East Timor and had not voted for recognising the independence of East Timor. We have now had an outcome in which East Timor's independence is recognised and accepted by the Indonesian parliament. There is a multinational force there and it will shortly be superseded by a UN force under the UN Resolution. There is a new President of Indonesia, who has a fairly wide, popular mandate, and although it is early days, some of the things which have been done have been encouraging. For instance, Indonesia has its first civilian defence minister and he has also involved in the government some people who do actually have a credible record in human rights. So that is encouraging but the balance of judgment remains to be made.

  95. My final question is in different territory. The Foreign Secretary, I am sure, has been following events in the Balkans in recent days, particularly in Croatia, where there appears to be a change of ruler, if not already certainly very soon. May I ask the Foreign Secretary what advice he has received from the posts in that area, what discussions he expects to be undertaking with our partners in the European Union, bearing in mind the importance of Croatia to the security of the region, and it seems to me a point of great import that from being almost favoured nation in the eyes of NATO a little while ago it is now being called a rogue state. I wonder if the Foreign Secretary might perhaps give us his views on how we should be helping Croatia run through the democratic process if it is going to change leader and government in the months ahead?
  (Mr Cook) I think I have to be careful about being drawn into speculation on the health of President Tudjman, but may I respond on the issue of substance. First of all, we have long had very real concerns about some aspects of the policy of the administration of Croatia, notably in terms of its commitment to refugee returns of those whom it expelled from Kryena and Slavonia; secondly, its co-operation with the War Crimes Tribunal, and thirdly, with the quality of freedom of the media and a pluralist democracy within Croatia. We also have reservations about the extent to which the government of Croatia has genuinely sought to carry through its commitments at Dayton to the free structure in Bosnia as one single pluralist entity. For all those reasons we would welcome the opportunity of a government in Croatia which had a more European orientation and was willing to work with us in the way that we want for the region and for Croatia itself. There will very shortly be elections within Croatia. We have ourselves expressed views about the extent to which those elections should be run on the basis of free and fair access to the media and I met two of the senior Croatian opposition figures last month when they were visiting London. We will want to monitor carefully the conduct of those elections and should it produce a change of government we will certainly seek to work with them to try and achieve a Croatia which is fully democratic and observes international obligations.

  96. Would that mean that the outcome of the elections could enhance or detract from Croatia's wish to become a member of the European Union?
  (Mr Cook) Croatia is not at present one of the candidate countries within the accession process. It is anxious to secure some of the earlier agreements which prefigure that accession, such as the Trade and Co-operation Agreement or the Association Agreement. We have taken the view inside the European Union that so long as we have these difficulties with Croatia's conduct, particularly in relation to the international tribunal, it is not possible for us to take this forward. If we had a government that was adopting a different approach to its international obligations and the Dayton commitments, then I am sure we could try and make progress in some of these prefiguring steps, such as a partnership and co-operation agreement or a trade agreement.

Ms Abbott

  97. I have just two questions on European defence. In response to an earlier line of questioning from my colleague Sir Peter Emery, you said that Washington had long wanted Europe to do more in defence matters. Surely the point is that Washington has long wanted Europe to do more under United States leadership, but is it not true to say that there is a strand of opinion in the United Kingdom that is extremely sceptical of the military and security dimensions of the European Union which it cannot really cover?
  (Mr Cook) America is a richly pluralist society with many different views.

  98. It sounds like the Labour Party.
  (Mr Cook) I can only offer the exchanges I have with the administration and the administration has been encouraging, not difficult, about this initiative.

  99. My other question is this: the joint St Malo declaration said that NATO remains the foundation of our collective defence and will continue to have an important role in crisis management. NATO's role in relation to defence is very clearly established under the Treaty but, leaving on one side the merits of that, there has been some debate about the basis in law for NATO intervening out of area apparently at will, and certainly, of course, in some instances in Russia. Have you any comments to make on that? The thing about defence is one of crisis management out of area at will. What is the basis in the Treaty for that?
  (Mr Cook) I slightly resist the idea that NATO is intervening at will. We intervened in the case of Kosovo because of the pressing humanitarian catastrophe and that is the basis in law on which we took that action. That, of course, is a consideration which would apply to any organisation, whether it was NATO or the European Union, which was authorising that form of crisis management. So it is not NATO-specific. It is the case that there is a wider debate, not just at a European level but at a global level, on the basis on which on future occasions it would be right for the international community to intervene. It was the focus of most of the speeches at the United Nations General Assembly in September. That work continues and, indeed, Britain has recently submitted some ideas to the Secretary General.


 
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