Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-90)
RT HON
JACK STRAW
MP, MR TIM
BARROW AND
MR DAVID
FROST
13 DECEMBER 2005
Q80 Mr Purchase: Britain.
Mr Straw: About?
Q81 Mr Purchase: About the budget
negotiations and the consequences of enlargement. Surely we knew
these things?
Mr Straw: We are not making a
fuss but we are right to call for budgetary restraint. We did
so in company with five other Member States. We want to see real
investment in the infrastructures of the new accession ten countries.
We also want to see reform, particularly of the Common Agricultural
Policy and other wasteful policies. Our judgment is you can get
the investment through structural and cohesion funds in the A10
and you can increase the pressure for reform within the budget
in the ballpark of the one that we have set. If we had agreed
to a very much higher budget we might have achieved the first
objective but not the second. Moreover, since there is such an
imbalance in the net position of otherwise similar countries inside
the European Union, this would have increased costs to a relatively
small number of Member States, including Sweden, the Netherlands,
Germany and ourselves.
Q82 Mr Horam: You are therefore saying
that there is an increasing financial restraint on the speed of
enlargement?
Mr Straw: No, I am not. I do not
believe that to be the case. There are some who are saying that
but it is not us at all. We have been in the vanguard of pushing
for enlargement. I remember the Prime Minister making a speech
in Warsaw in 2000, calling for a firm decision on enlargement
in 2002 with a view to accession in 2004. Some people thought
that he was being unrealistic but that was his position. It was
the position of my predecessor, the late Robin Cook, and they
were right about this and rather visionary. With luck, we will
see the same happening in respect of the other states in the Western
Balkans and with Turkey. All of us in Europe have a big, strategic
choice: do we want these countries in the Western Balkans with
their chequered and violent past? Do we separately want Turkey
in its strategic position to come towards Europe or to go away
from it?
Q83 Richard Younger-Ross: One of
the successes which I am sure the government is planning for its
presidency will be progress on Turkey. There is a long way to
go and a lot of questions but the Turks are singing Britain's
praises for all we have done to support them. However, there are
two key issues—one is Cyprus and one is human rights—which
need to be resolved. On the first one, are you able to say what
progress has been made under the UK presidency towards resolution
of the Cyprus problem?
Mr Straw: On Cyprus, what I did
with colleagues was to ensure that there was a satisfactory outcome
in respect of the negotiations for a start to be set of 3 October
for Turkey to join. I regard that as one of the best things we
have done in our presidency. It took a huge amount of effort but
we got there in the small hours of 4 October. One of the things
I said to our Cypriot colleagues was that, if they ever wanted
there to be a united Cyprus, they had to make it possible for
Turkey to come into the European Union because unless they did
so the island of Cyprus would remain divided and Turkey would
carry on with some thousands of troops on the island and there
would be no resolution of the disputes and so on. The Republic
of Cyprus representing these days the Greek Cypriot community
understood that, although it is quite hard for them because they
meanwhile have some arguments with the Turkish Cypriots and with
Turkey. The Republic of Greece however had a clearer strategic
sense about this all the way through. That is the first thing
we have been doing for the resolution of the Cyprus issue. The
progress in terms of meeting the requirements of Security Council
resolution 1250 and others which set in train the good offices
of the Secretary General otherwise has been limited in the last
six months. Instead, the situation has become bogged down on some
other dossier, particularly on the aid and trade regulations.
I am very anxious to see progress resume but it is not going to
happen before Christmas.
Q84 Richard Younger-Ross: There are
cases like Orhan Pamuk who is being tried for being insulting
to Turkishness because he stated that Turkey had in the past happened
to kill a few Kurds and a few Armenians. We would probably take
that as a statement of fact but the Turks have not. The EU Commission
believes that if the laws governing this are interpreted so strictly
at the moment then those laws need to be revised. The Turkish
justification is to say that in the UK or in other parts of Europe
they have equally restrictive laws. Do you see a way of going
forward, helping Turkey through that process of reviewing its
regulation on human rights, being aware that they think we are
setting the hurdles higher for them than anyone else?
Mr Straw: Yes. They have to meet
clear human rights standards and they understand that. I think
they also understand that the prosecution of people like Orhan
Pamuk has been very embarrassing, to put it at its least. I understand
that Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said publicly
that he expects the courts to clear Mr Pamuk. Mr Pamuk has also
said that he does not want his case to be used as a reason to
delay the progress on Turkey's accession. As you have said, the
Commission said that if the Turkish penal code continues to be
interpreted in a restrictive manner it may need to be amended
in order to safeguard freedom of expression in Turkey. I think
that will be true but this is a situation which can evolve over
time. In the four and a half years that I have been doing this
job, Turkey has changed dramatically in terms of its human rights
record and much else besides. Even four and a half years ago it
was a country where it would be hard to say that it was fully
democratic. It has made a lot of progress since then. It is interesting
in my view that although the party of government, the AKP, is
a secular party it is the one which gives the greatest respect
to Islam of all the mainstream political parties in Turkey.
Q85 Chairman: Can I take you to an
issue which was quite controversial a few months ago, before the
British presidency? It seems to have gone very quiet. It is the
question about relations with China in regard to the lifting of
the EU arms embargo. Could you update us on whether there are
plans to revisit that?
Mr Straw: It has gone quiet because
there is not a lot to report on it. It is raised by the Chinese
Government and in various bilateral and multilateral fora. There
is at the moment no consensus for lifting the embargo. We have
also collectively in the European Union explained to our Chinese
colleagues that although they resist the notion of a linkage between
the arms embargo and human rights—I understand why they
say that—at the same time there is in people's minds a linkage
of these two. In national parliaments and the European Parliament
it is there and if they were to make moves towards ratifying various
international instruments which they have signed or said they
have approved and make other moves, that would maybe ease the
overall political environment in which there could be discussion
about the lifting of the arms embargo.
Q86 Chairman: We visited Israel,
Gaza and the West Bank two weeks ago and we saw the very positive
work being done by the carabinieri and Danish and Romanian people
with them in Rafah. Those of us who went to Rafah were very impressed
by the way that was being dealt with. The people there were of
extremely high quality. There have however been some suggestions
of difficulty since then with regard to the reaction of the Israelis
to what has been going on at that crossing point. How do you see
the EU's assessment of what has been going on? In the context
of the discussion within the European Union Council about what
has been going on with regard to Israel and the Palestinians,
could you give us a brief assessment of how you see this being
taken forward?
Mr Straw: I had a meeting yesterday
at the General Affairs Council with Javier Solana and Benito Ferraro-Warner
and Mark Ott, who is our EU representative in that area. They
were positive about progress at Rafah. There was a bit of a frisson
with the government of Israel over the possible publication of
a draft paper about East Jerusalem but there was no consensus
in favour of its publication yesterday so it has not been published.
Q87 Chairman: Having played a big
role in its writing, we are keen to have it published, are we?
Mr Straw: There was much to be
said on all sides on the matter but without a consensus it could
not be published.
Q88 Sir John Stanley: The whole party
went at one point to the West Bank and Ken Purchase and myself
spent a further whole day on the West Bank. You will see our views
in the debate we had in Westminster Hall last week, of extreme
depression as to the ever growing extent to which fundamental
rights of Palestinians are being violated on a daily basis. We
all totally understand the security dimension and we totally respect
and support Israel's right to take proper measures within its
own boundaries to protect its people. Given the ever growing degree
of chronic and in some cases catastrophic disruption of the ordinary
daily lives of Palestinians, is the British Government going to
do anything with its EU partners to not merely remonstrate but
take some specific action to ensure that the Israeli Government
gives a higher priority to allowing the Palestinians to emerge
as a viable state, which is our policy, and also to reduce the
degree of chronic, catastrophic disruption of the every day lives
of Palestinians?
Mr Straw: Yes, and we have made
very positive progress on this. I know the situation is terrible
in many parts of the West Bank. I have seen it myself. It is also
terrible for many Israelis because of the gratuitous terrorism
which they have suffered. It is the terrorism, I am afraid, which
is the mother and father of the fear, deprivation and everything
else which is suffered by the Palestinians and by the Israelis.
What have we done? What we have done—and this is a dramatic
change in terms of the position of the European Union, even in
the space of a year—is, alongside the United States almost
as equal partners, we have helped to facilitate the beginnings
of the transformation of Gaza from being an occupied territory,
occupied by Israel, to being what amounted almost to a prison,
now to opening its borders with Egypt through Rafah and more and
more with Israel and then building up its economy. The ties into
the Wolfeson plan. That change is extraordinary. I have always
believed that you have to start somewhere with this vision of
a separate and viable state of Palestine. You have to give the
Palestinians the opportunity to prove that they can run part of
their state and give them the support to do so. That is exactly
what we are doing and, bit by bit, I think it is moving forward.
We have the Palestinian council elections taking place in January.
We are very anxious that they should operate properly and that
there should be freedom of movement for candidates, particularly
on the West Bank. That is very important and we are working on
that. We are also anxious to ensure that East Jerusalem is not
cut off from the rest of the West Bank which is why we have all
made such strong representations about the possibility of the
Israelis building on the E1 area. You shake your head, Sir John.
Q89 Sir John Stanley: I am shaking
my head because East Jerusalem is being cut off totally.
Mr Straw: We have to work with
what we have. Everybody knows the history there but, compared
to the way in which things were going during the arms intifada
when Chairman Arafat was in control, things are now moving forward
from a low base, I accept, but none of us would have wished to
have started from where we are. That is where we are and with
Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, and
Ariel Sharon who has surprised us all with both his determination
and his courage, there are grounds for hope. Maybe this is a moment
of seasonal sentiment on which to finish.
Q90 Mr Illsley: Is there any progress
on the Bulgarian nurses imprisoned in Libya?
Mr Straw: Not a lot. I will write
to you. 4
Chairman: Thank you for coming. We will
see you next year and good luck in the negotiations.
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