Memorandum from the Parliamentary Under
Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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As I said at yesterday's evidence session, we
have been concerned about the OPCW's recent record of financial
and administrative management. In particular, in 2001 the Executive
Council was belatedly informed that the Organisation was facing
a financial crisis, caused primarily by a failure to match spending
to a realistic assessment of actual income. The drastic measures
proposed to cope with the deficit centred on severe cutbacks in
the OPCW's verification work—which lies at the core of its
activity in support of implementation of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. These cutbacks have resulted in a fall in programmed
inspection activities of almost 50 per cent. Together with our
EU partners, we made representations to Mr Bustani on several
occasions last year to express our concern about this decline,
but without success. The Director General cannot escape responsibility
for allowing this financial crisis to develop.
* * * * *
Other Member States have raised other issues.
But the key point I would like to underline is that it became
clear early this year that the Director-General had lost the confidence
not just of the US but also of the majority of the OPCW's other
leading contributors. At a meeting of the OPCW's Executive Council
in March, 17 members supported a motion of no confidence in Mr
Bustami's leadership only five voted against. We had hoped that
the Director-General would understand that message and step down
in the interests of the OPCW as a whole. However, he chose not
to do so, preferring that the issue should be tested by a Special
Conference of States Parties to the CWC. That Conference has just
met. In a vote on 22 April, 48 states expressed no confidence
in Mr Bustani's leadership; only seven (Russia, Belarus, China,
Iran, Cuba, Brazil and Mexico) supported him. These figures speak
for themselves.
The Government's policy has been guided throughout
by our judgement of the best interests of the OPCW and the CWC.
It is clearly untenable if the Director-General has lost the confidence
of the countries collectively contributing over 75 per cent of
the Organisation's funding. The priority now must be to draw a
line under this unfortunate passage and appoint a new Director-General
who can command the support of the entire membership. We can then
begin to address the urgent financial problems facing the OPCW.
Ben Bradshaw MP,
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
24 April 2002
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