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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