Examination of witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 30 NOVEMBER 1999
THE RT
HON ROBIN
COOK, MR
EMYR JONES
PARRY, CMG and MR
NIGEL SHEINWALD
Sir David Madel
100. Foreign Secretary, earlier you said that
the European Union needed a strong security system. Does it need
a strong one or a stronger one?
(Mr Cook) Let us go for stronger. I am not in any
way seeking to express alarm or dismay about the present degree
of security but if we look over the past decade at the number
of crises we have had to manage within the Western Balkans, I
think it is difficult to say that this provides a basis on which
we can be complacent about our capacity to respond or to defuse
such a security crisis. In particular in Kosovo, as I said in
the House last week, it was striking that, although we had 2 million
men and women in uniform in the European forces, it was a struggle
to get 2 per cent into Kosovo which, when all is said and done,
is not far away. In these circumstances, it seems only right that
we should look at how we both improve our decision-making and
enhance the current capability we have to carry out those decisions.
101. But these decisions and this action if
it came, we are only talking about what I would call the general
European theatre. It is only in that particular area that this
new system would operate?
(Mr Cook) I do not think anybody is envisaging that
the European Union is going to interfere out of continent. Do
you wish to say anything?
(Mr Jones Parry) The Treaty does allow it.
(Mr Cook) Realistically, we are looking at intervention
in the case of the continent of Europe.
Sir John Stanley
102. Could Mr Parry repeat what he said. We
did not actually hear his intervention.
(Mr Cook) His point is that there was no legal bar
in the Treaty but I think that is a separate question from the
political decision. Looking towards the future, who could say
whether it might not be appropriate for us to respond to a UN
appeal for some humanitarian intervention, but we are not looking
at seeking crises to resolve elsewhere.
Sir David Madel
103. A lot of people see this as America to
some extent receding from European defence. Is that going to help
our relations with Russia?
(Mr Cook) First of all, may I stress that this is
not territorial defence. I think actually if you were go to down
the road of territorial defence then you would have sensitivity
with Russia. We are not aware of any concern they have about the
proposal we are making for crisis management. In relation to the
United States, I would strongly dispute that what we are proposing
is likely to produce any increased desire on the part of America
to withdraw from Europe. Indeed, I think you can make a quite
respectable case to the contrary, which is that if senators and
congressmen continue to feel that Europe is not playing its full
part and that America has to shoulder too much of the burden,
as, for example, in Kosovo, that is more likely to promote impatience
with Europe than the evidence that we are actually making a clearer,
more focused contribution.
104. So really what this is about, what this
change is about, and it is quite a big change, is really to reinforce
American commitment to Europe?
(Mr Cook) We would certainly wish in all we did to
reinforce NATO and thereby reinforce the joint commitment of both
Europe and America to each other.
Dr Godman
105. You can anticipate assurances from the
new occupant of the White House concerning America's continued
involvement in Europe, can you?
(Mr Cook) I do not know who that would be and it is
for America to decide, but we would certainly want to have the
same cordial and close relations with the new President as we
have with the present one.
106. There is growing opinion, though, in America,
is there not, that in addition to the belief that Europe should
pay more towards its own defence, America's interests can be reduced
in Europe, in the European theatre, in a physical sense?
(Mr Cook) I am not aware that there is much pressure
there at the present time and you have to set that against the
backdrop in which there has already been a very substantial United
States reduction in the wake of the collapse of the Cold War,
but I am not aware of any current pressures for that. What I think
our American friends wish to see is Europe able to play its part
when needed and the kind of enhancement that we are proposing
to Europe's capacity for crisis management will be very welcome.
107. Can I ask one question, Mr Chairman, regarding
the Foreign Secretary's memorandum, paragraph 10, in which he
states: "by 2003, Europeans to be able to deploy more effective
forces for crisis management, either as part of a NATO operation
or as an EU-led operation". Do you envisage the latter as
some kind of operation being taken in the peace-keeping field,
in response to a request from the United Nations?
(Mr Cook) It could be. I would not wish either to
preclude that or to limit us to that.
108. Am I right in thinking that all of the
smaller Member States of the European Union—those which
are eligible—have now signed up to the Partnership for Peace
Initiative?
(Mr Cook) Within the eligible countries, yes, they
are all part of the Europe-Atlantic Partnership Council.
109. On this question of a European Union-led
operation, there must be a lively debate about it amongst Member
States. You mentioned crisis management. How do you define "crisis
management"? Does the military intervention in Kosovo come
within your definition of crisis management, or do you see crisis
management as that which is taking place now in Kosovo in terms
of the maintenance of peace amongst ethnic groups in that area?
(Mr Cook) The locus classicus in this is the
Petersberg declaration which was drawn up within the WEU in the
mid-1990s and which does set out a range of what have since become
known as the Petersberg tasks—that is, crisis management,
humanitarian intervention, peace-keeping and also peace-making.
Those tasks of crisis management were defined to distinguish them
from territorial defence in the face of aggression. I would myself
say that Kosovo was crisis management in some ways.
110. From the very start?
(Mr Cook) Yes. You could certainly classify it as
peace-making. That, of course, does not mean to say that on a
future occasion such as that it will necessarily be the EU that
will lead the response. We have repeatedly stressed that NATO
will not only have the sole prerogative on the task of territorial
defence, NATO also will have the option of leading the crisis
management in future crises. If that were to happen, the work
which we are proposing to improve the military capacity of Europe
to be more rapid, more flexible, more mobile, will be a bonus,
because those assets are initially committed to NATO and will
be available to NATO.
111. Forgive me for my sparse preparation or
research, but a European-led operation, can I assume, would not
take place outwith Europe?
(Mr Cook) I would not want to give an absolute guarantee,
because as you yourself indicated earlier, Britain may receive
a UN request. I frankly think it unlikely, and nobody at the present
time is envisaging it. The models which we have in our minds for
when we might be required are the kinds of models we have seen
recently in the Western Balkans within our own continent.
Chairman
112. Foreign Secretary, I think one can exaggerate
the scope of operations of the WEU. I am correct, I think, in
saying that at the moment the only operation which the WEU is
involved in is the police operation in Albania, is that correct?
(Mr Cook) Yes. I think we also had some small operation
on the Danube at one stage too, connected with the problems of
the Western Balkans, but you are absolutely right, it is clearly
extremely easy to overstate the operational role of the WEU.
113. HMG clearly envisages for suitable safeguards
the absorption of the WEU into the EU structures. You must have
some plan as to how this will be done. Within that plan, what
are our specific proposals to protect the interests of the WEU
non-EU countries—Norway, Turkey and Iceland? How do we envisage
that their interests can be protected in the new structure?
(Mr Cook) The interests of those countries, of course,
arise equally and perhaps more sharply in the context of their
status as members of NATO. As I said earlier to the Committee,
we would anticipate the European members of NATO who are outside
the European Union having an involvement in any early discussions
about whether or not there was an EU-led operation and having
the right to participate in it, and that at the point of participation
they would have equal rights with other participants.
114. If NATO itself is not involved, though,
we do envisage the membership of an enlarged EU committee to include
countries like Norway?
(Mr Cook) Not of a committee. We are not proposing,
after all, a council of defence ministers. We would certainly
envisage Norway and the other NATO members of the European continent—and
also, by the way, Canada which has expressed an interest in participating
in EU-led operations—being involved in the consultations
earlier on. We are also explicit that where there is such an operation,
the conduct of the operation will be in the hands of the participants,
not necessarily the members of the European Union.
115. Foreign Secretary, mixing my metaphors,
we have kept you in the field some time. I am going to call our
sweeper, Mr Mackinlay, in a moment, but can I give the apologies
to you of two colleagues who are most concerned that you should
be aware of the reasons for their absence. Dr Starkey is at her
daughter's degree ceremony, and Mr Wilshire is at the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe. Both of them particularly wanted
their apologies for their absence to be passed to you.
(Mr Cook) Both of them have excellent reasons for
not being here, one of them perhaps more pleasurable than the
other.
Mr Mackinlay
116. I have three very swift questions which
could have fitted in anywhere in our discussions this afternoon.
On the Tampere justice and home affairs point, will we not have
to amend our Official Secrets Act to provide a defence of public
interest? The reason why I say this is in the light of the Schaler
case in France in which we sought his extradition. I think the
Schaler case is an illustration. We sought his extradition because
he had fouled us, as it were, and the French court found that
he could not be extradited because he could not advance a defence
in the United Kingdom of public interest. The construction I was
making is that that is likely to be a decision which will prevail
in other European Union States. Is not this an area which you
would have to discuss, because presumably the idea of Tampere
is that it would be almost a presumption that extradition would
follow, would it not?
(Mr Cook) I can only say, in the well-hallowed phrase,
we have no plans to do so.
117. I heard that from the Home Secretary. I
am talking about the real world. I find it irritating. Why do
we not recognise sometimes that there is a problem and fight it?
(Mr Cook) There is an issue here. As you will be well
aware, HMG sought the extradition, and we would wish to see that
extradition proceed. It is not for me to query the judgment of
the French court. Whether we would necessarily wish to embark
on changing our law because of that judgment of the French court
is something which I think we would want to look at.
118. No, it is the consequence of common justice
and home affairs which is in question; that is why I was raising
it.
(Mr Cook) Yes. We have stressed the mutual recognition
of court judgments. We have also sought to make sure that there
is a swifter and quicker response to extradition on request between
us, so that criminals cannot escape the law in one country by
taking refuge in another country state. I would be hesitant about
going further and commenting on how that impacts on a specific
case.
119. Can I move to a quite separate matter.
When we had Joyce Quin before us I remember her expressing some
doubt about the extent of twinning. This is the arrangement under
the European accession programmes whereby public servants at various
levels should have a twin in a Member State, so that they could,
by distance, link up, get advice and counsel as to how to handle
things, particularly in relation to harmonisation as a gradual
process. She was quite indignant at the suggestion that there
was not enough being done. I recently had a Parliamentary Question
which I circulated to my colleagues, and to be candid, I was disappointed
about what the United Kingdom was doing in this regard. I wonder
whether you can either amplify it or, indeed, look at it again,
because it seems to me that this a very positive thing at minimal
cost which EU states could be doing to a very large extent to
advance.
(Mr Cook) We currently have 23 cases of twinning.
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