Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-77)
RT HON.
DAVID MILIBAND
MP AND MATTHEW
RYCROFT
10 DECEMBER 2008
Q60 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
I feel that your statement about the situation in Bosnia being
very difficult is a pretty major understatement. Lord Ashdown,
who probably did more than anyone to put Bosnia together, is absolutely
clear that it is unravelling—and unravelling dangerously.
This is a policy area that the British Government and the EU must
take much more seriously, otherwise things will slide into a recurrence
of the terrible ethnic violence that we saw there.
David Miliband: I will send you a copy of the
letter that I wrote with Karel Schwarzenberg in July, because
it made precisely the same point. We called for greater EU attention,
and I assure you that the matter is on the agenda. As Matthew
was our ambassador there, he can give you more detail about the
efforts that we are making bilaterally, but it is precisely because
of my concern that we wrote six months ago to say that this had
to go up the European agenda. I think that I said to the Chairman
that the situation is dangerously fragile and could spill over
into violence, if it is not held together. We are doing all that
we can on that score.
It is significant that the weekend before I
arrived, the party leaders from all three communities issued an
important statement together about the future. That has caused
some splits, but it has also shown the way forward. It was an
important statement, and one that a lot of younger Bosnians would
have seen as quite significant.
Q61 Andrew Mackinlay: Enlargement
brings me back to what we opened with this afternoon—the
problem with the treaty and Ireland. It seems to me that enlargement
will be paralysed unless or until the Lisbon treaty is ratified.
I say that because if we revert to the Nice treaty, it will not
allow more enlargement. The case for Lisbon is that it will facilitate
enlargement. We need to address the problem, and to hear your
views on it.
You were absolutely correct to say in relation
to Ireland that things such as abortion and neutrality are not
part of the treaty. However, one thing that is on the shopping
list of the Irish Government and the Irish people is having their
own commissioner. If we enlarge—you conceded that—there
would be even more commissioners. I want to bounce the idea off
you. First, we cannot enlarge because we do not have Lisbon; the
situation is in paralysis, which is a great tragedy and a missed
opportunity, particularly if things move fast in Serbia. I do
not want to be unkind, but you dismissed the issue by saying that
things such as abortion and neutrality are not part of the Lisbon
treaty. However, commissioners—institutional things—are.
Is not the unlocking mechanism for you and your colleagues to
meet the aspirations of Ireland institutionally? Even if that
means a large Commission, it is not the end of the world.
David Miliband: Nothing is the end of the world
except the end of the world, thank goodness, but you are right
to point out the limits that Nice places on enlargement. I do
not think they are absolute, but one of the reasons for revising
Nice was the stretching at the seams of the institutional architecture
as the European Union grew. It was fundamentally the shift to
27 member states that drove the desire to reform after 2001. As
I said, the situation is not absolute. Croatia is probably first
in the queue. I do not think that it is barred from joining by
Nice, but you cannot go much further. On the commissioners, you
can just look at what the Lisbon treaty says, which is very clear.
It says that there will be a reduction to two thirds of the current
size unless there is a decision of the European Council. That
is written in black and white in the Lisbon treaty.
Q62 Andrew Mackinlay: So you can
tweak it without having an amended treaty?
David Miliband: The text says that you will
have two thirds of the number of commissioners unless there is
a unanimous decision of the European Council, so flexibility is
built in.
Q63 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
may I return to the issue of Kosovo? I preface this by saying
that of course I appreciate that every Foreign Secretary has always
been in the business of papering over cracks, but this crack is
so wide that you cannot paper over it. There is a fundamental
incompatibility between the position of the British Government
in saying that they have recognised Kosovo as an independent state
on its existing territorial boundaries, as an integrated state,
and at the same time saying that we support the EULEX mission
on the mandate that has been given to it by the UN saying that
it is status-neutral, which of course means that it will not have
the same remit and the same effectiveness in the Serbian-controlled
areas of Kosovo as elsewhere. Those two simply cannot be run together.
Perhaps it was the best deal you could come up with, but I put
it to you that the two positions are fundamentally contradictory.
David Miliband: No, I really want to persuade
you of this. I have 20 minutes to go and I really want to persuade
you that this is—
Chairman: Will you not need longer than
that?
David Miliband: I will not need longer. I honestly
think I can persuade you that we are not papering over—
Sir John Stanley: Have a go in one minute, because
there are other questions.
David Miliband: First, EULEX's mandate is defined
by the European Union. Its mandate is to protect all citizens
of Kosovo, irrespective of their ethnic origin and wherever they
live, throughout—the word "throughout" is important—its
territory. It is not there to decide on status questions.
Secondly, the UN framework, which is set by
resolution 1244, is status-neutral. As I said earlier, resolution
1244 did not decide the final status of Kosovo; it set up a political
process to decide the final status. So it is resolution 1244 that
is status-neutral. It is EULEX that is operating throughout Kosovo
to protect the rights of citizens of Kosovo, according to the
Kosovo constitution, which will apply throughout the country,
without parallel structures, according to the Ahtisaari plan.
That is why I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that it
is for states to recognise Kosovo, as 53 of them have; it is quite
right to say that the European Union has an interest in stability
there, which is why it is deploying throughout the territory;
and it is consistent to say that resolution 1244 does not decide
status questions. Rather than being about cracks being papered
over, this is about a circle being properly squared.
Q64 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
I think that you saw the President, the Prime Minister and the
Foreign Secretary of Kosovo immediately after some of us saw them
in the House at the time they made their visit here, so you also
understand that the attachment of the phrase "status-neutral"
to EULEX causes them to apply the same interpretation to that
as around resolution 1244. They are most certainly interpreting
it as follows. Just as resolution 1244 did not determine the final
status of Kosovo, as you properly and correctly pointed out, they
are also, as a result of using the same phrase, taking the view—possibly
with some justification—that EULEX, in practice, is not
going to have the same remit and authority in the Serbian-controlled
areas of Kosovo as elsewhere.
David Miliband: I really hope that you join
me in disabusing them of the idea that the words "status-neutral"
have been attached to EULEX. EULEX is not there to decide on status
questions; EULEX is there to protect individual citizens, according
to the mandate, derived from Ahtisaari principles, to be applied
throughout Kosovo. The point on resolution 1244 is important.
Resolution 1244 is status-neutral, but it creates a political
process for status to be decided by individual states that recognise
Kosovo. The truth is that there was some difficulty handling the
development of the six points that were agreed. But it is important,
as I explained to the Kosovo President and Prime Minister—I
was in Pristina two weeks before—to note that there is nothing
in those six points that violates the red lines that they have
set: above all, that the constitution of Kosovo should apply throughout
its territory, with no parallel court, police or judicial structures.
We have to hold to that.
Q65 Sir John Stanley: Foreign Secretary,
do you think that we have now reached the limit in respect of
which EU member states will recognise the independence of Kosovo?
David Miliband: No. Twenty-two have recognised
it and five more have to make a decision, but I have good reason
to believe that we have not yet reached the limit.
Sir John Stanley: I think you would agree that
Spain, for example, is absolutely determined not to recognise
Kosovo.
David Miliband: I think it is important that
I do not complicate matters further for the Spanish Government.
Suffice it to say that I think it is important that the process
of recognition around the world carries on. Significantly, in
the past few weeks the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia have
recognised Kosovo. As I was saying, 53 countries recognise Kosovo.
It is important that that continues.
Q66 Mr. Purchase: On that same point,
53 sounds fine, but it is not yet 96, which is the figure needed
just to get half the countries in the United Nations agreeing.
It is not just a European issue; it is a world issue. We are nowhere
near the total required in terms of individual states' recognition,
which you were saying was the key to this. It is just not going
to happen, is it, Foreign Secretary?
David Miliband: That is a good point, in a way,
but only if one does not think about this matter historically.
Think about a country such as Bangladesh. It took nine months
for Bangladesh to be recognised by Britain in the early 1970s
and three years for it to become a member of the United Nations.
If you had said to me a year ago that Kosovo
will be peaceful, no one will have been killed, EULEX will have
been deployed and that 53 countries will have recognised Kosovo,
including some significant Muslim states—
Mr. Purchase: I think you are being over-hopeful.
David Miliband: Well, you don't know what I
am going to say yet. If you had said those things to me a year
ago, I would have said that that is not a bad outcome for what
I said, when I came to this Committee a year ago, was going to
be one of the most dangerous and difficult pieces of foreign policy
in 2008. We now have EULEX deployed with unanimous UN Security
Council support. I am not claiming that this is all beer and skittles
and that it is all sorted out, but it is a serious base to build
on in 2009, and I look forward to your helping me do so.
Chairman: We need to move on to one final area.
David Miliband: I thought that I had 20 minutes
to persuade Sir John Stanley that we were okay—[Interruption.]
Can I ask him if he is persuaded?
Chairman: I do not think he is.
David Miliband: I think he is partially persuaded.
Sir John Stanley: I will speak for myself. I
have listened carefully to what you have said, Foreign Secretary,
and I assure you that I will look closely at the documentation,
as I always try to do, to reach a view on the facts.
Q67 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Foreign
Secretary, are you happy that the European security and defence
policy has developed as it has? This will be discussed again at
the forthcoming Council meeting. There is obviously a question
here about complementarity with NATO, which I know is of concern
to the Government. As I understand it, the Government have always
opposed the creation of a permanent planning cell[4]
for military matters in the European Union. Is that still the
Government's position?
David Miliband: Yes.
Q68 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Good. Again,
I know that these are only draft conclusions and up for negotiation,
but they refer to a decision to establish "a new, single
civilian-military planning structure at strategic level for ESDP
operations and missions."
David Miliband: We support that as well.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I find that puzzling, because
I asked you about a single planning cell—
David Miliband: No, a single military planning
cell.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The word military does—
David Miliband: No, let us be absolutely clear.
You asked me whether I support a single military planning cell,
and I said no. Do I support a civilian-military cell? Yes.
Q69 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: So, you
are hanging your hat on the hyphen between civilian and military.
You like the civilian part but not the military part.
David Miliband: I do not like duplication of
NATO; I like complementarity with NATO. The point is that NATO
offers the hard end of military intervention. What the EU offers
is a range of diplomatic but also quasi-military tools—policing
and so on. That is why it is right that it has a civilian-military
planning cell that can think and work for joint, or complementary,
operations with NATO.
Q70 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Right. I
am glad to hear you say that. I know that this is a long-standing
concern, which others here certainly share. This move towards
a single planning structure, albeit civilian-military rather than
simply military, is nevertheless a move in a direction that we
have always been suspicious of. We have in the papers before us
an article that you wrote jointly with Monsieur Kouchner, the
French Foreign Affairs Minister, which goes over the question
of the EU military effort. It refers to the danger of taking over
NATO, but not at all to a planning structure. Given that we are
about to set up this single civilian-military strategic planning
structure, I am a little worried that you are not mentioning the
difficult things that are in the conclusions of the Council. We
seem to be moving in that direction, which I know is a French
aim—
David Miliband: I am sorry that you are worried.
The French aim has always been to have a military planning cell.
What the current French Government have said though is that they
want to join NATO, and they are now throwing their support behind
a civilian-military planning cell. That is a real step forward,
because it is 10 years since the St. Malo declaration. The Government
and I favour activist and engaged European security and defence
policy. We have a naval mission in the Gulf of Aden and a EULEX
rule of law mission in Kosovo. In Kosovo, they are working side
by side with 15,000 NATO troops, which is precisely the sort of
complementarity that I was referring to. There is a planning cell
at the moment that does not have a civilian-military designation
but does planning of European effort. That is a good thing. This
is about France and Britain—the two biggest military powers
in Europe—coming together and putting to one side the old
debate, which was that you were either for NATO or for European
defence, and saying that those are complementary institutions.
That is a very big, important and positive step forward, not a
worrying one.
Q71 Mr. Horam: Is that not precisely
the point, that this is the end of the ideological war over this
issue between France and the rest? Now that France has made this
significant change in policy, we can relax and concentrate on
the practicalities of the capabilities, and so forth. As you say,
France and Britain have I think around two thirds of all military
research and development spending and about 40% of all military
spending. If those two countries can get together in a practical
way, sharing capabilities and procurement, there is value for
money and practicality. We should get on with it and be much more
positive.
David Miliband: I think that people would struggle
to be more positive than me about that, but I am glad that you
are as positive as me. This is a very important step forward.
The old scare stories about European armies are just that—scare
stories. There is not, and there is not going to be, a European
army. There are national armies that contribute to European efforts,
and I think that that is a thoroughly good thing. It is striking
that the current President of the United States of America and
the current NATO ambassador to the USA support European security
independence, and it is striking also that the President-elect
of America is a strong supporter of greater European unity and
effort on this issue.
Q72 Mr. Horam: Does it come down
to procurement as well? Your Government have just ordered two
new aircraft carriers. There is huge money involved. Is not procurement
also an issue?
David Miliband: There are all sorts of synergies
to be found. We have focused on the operational end, but you are
right, and in terms of the defence industries, there is some important
potential to be exploited. Obviously, the Ministry of Defence
leads on that area, but people underestimate the importance of
French entry into full NATO structures next April at the 60th
anniversary meeting in Strasbourg-Kehl. Kehl is across the border;
it is a joint French-German summit. For France to be fully engaged
in NATO should be quite liberating for the role that Europe plays.
Q73 Chairman: That is all very well,
Foreign Secretary, but would it not be helpful if the Germans
were more engaged with NATO and with European defence?
David Miliband: Why do you want to knock the
Germans particularly?
Chairman: I am not knocking them; I just feel
that Germany is such a large country that it could make a much
greater contribution alongside its NATO partners and its European
partners in building up capabilities in Europe.
David Miliband: I think that you are right to
emphasise burden sharing in general—we talked about that
with our German colleagues—but I do not think that we should
underestimate what it means for German forces to be deployed outside
Germany's borders. We should remember that for 50 years we spent
a lot of time and effort trying to build up a Germany that did
not want to send troops and airmen outside its own borders. I
know exactly what you are saying, but we are all, to some extent,
prisoners of our history, and part of the job of politics is to
help people build on their history, rather than be imprisoned
by it.
The fact is that Germany has announced that
it is increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, and, for
all the perfectly reasonable points that we and others make about
caveats and the rest of it, let us not neglect the fundamental
historical facts: Germany is now completely embedded in democratic
and peaceful structures in Europe, is at peace with its neighbours,
and contributes, through NATO and other mechanisms, to international
armed efforts. That is a big thing in historical terms, so, yes,
we should engage with them about burden-sharing, but there are
4,500 German troops now in Afghanistan, and 10 years ago that
would have seemed incredible. It is very difficult politics in
Germany—for good reason.
Q74 Chairman: I understand that,
Foreign Secretary. Indeed, a leading German Christian Democrat
said that it was all our fault—that we had been too successful
in demilitarising Germany after the second world war, and we were
now reaping the consequences. He made the point as a joke, but
it is true: German politics is very much influenced by that legacy
and the feeling that they do not want to go back to that awful
past. That is welcome, but I still think—I just place it
on the record—that a bigger contribution from some of our
NATO partners in Afghanistan and elsewhere would be very helpful
to us.
David Miliband: It is an interesting point.
A book was written last year called "The Political Brain:
The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation".
It says that there is a rational part of the brain and an emotional
part. The rational part of the brain sees Germany as one of the
largest and wealthiest countries in Europe with significant armed
forces and says, "It should be doing lots more out of area."
The emotional part of the brain, which is important, especially
in politics, says, "There's a lot of history here, there's
a lot of fear inside Germany as well as outside, and that needs
to be respected." I know that you do not seek to disrespect
it; I just think that it is worth putting on the record the fact
that having a pop at the Germans is a national sport.
Mr. Purchase: That has also come out of the
rational part of your brain.
Q75 Sir John Stanley: Under the ground
rules, before there is a military deployment under the European
Security and Defence Policy, the operation is first put to NATO
to see whether it wishes to undertake it itself. Was the operation
for the deployment of EU naval forces along the Somalian coast
offered to NATO, and did it turn it down, or was it not offered
to NATO at all?
David Miliband: NATO has had ships out there
and is in the process of withdrawing them. I can get the precise
choreography of events for you, because I would not want to give
a misleading answer. My understanding is that all the usual norms
were observed.
Sir John Stanley: Will you follow that up with
a note?[5]
Q76 Andrew Mackinlay: On 4 December,
the European Court of First Instance found against the European
Council in relation to the People's Mujahedeen Organisation of
Iran, which is an Iranian resistance group. It said that the Council
had violated and infringed the PMOI's rights, and it ordered it
to pay the PMOI's costs. That is a matter of fact, and it happened
last Wednesday week. What does the Council intend to do about
that extraordinary judgment against it by the European Court of
First Instance? I do not mean this sarcastically, but presumably
you know about that?
David Miliband: I know about it, but I have
not read the judgment, which was made last Wednesday. We shall
consider it and then respond. As you know, we proscribed the PMOI
because we believe them to be a terrorist organisation.
Q77 Andrew Mackinlay: And that is no
longer the case now?
David Miliband: As I said—I chose my words
carefully—we proscribed them because we believed them to
be a terrorist organisation. We do not have new information to
make us change our view, but we know that the court has ruled
as you described. That is why it is right that we respect the
court's judgment and that we promise to respond in an appropriate
way.
Andrew Mackinlay: Yes, but I am little alarmed
that, at the present time, the United Kingdom Government have
not proscribed it. We have done so in the past, but that has now
been lifted. We are agreed on that.
David Miliband: We have adhered to all of the
court judgments in this area.
Andrew Mackinlay: Okay. Parliament passed an
amending statutory instrument to that effect.
David Miliband: Indeed.
Andrew Mackinlay: That is the law. Now we are
looking to the Council to fulfil its obligations under the rule
of law.
David Miliband: Indeed. That is why I think
it is right that we of course respect the court's judgment, that
we respond appropriately in due course, and that we always act
within domestic and international law.
Chairman: Foreign Secretary and Mr. Rycroft,
we have covered a wide range of issues and topics, and we could
have spent a lot longer on some of them. We are very grateful
to you. We know that you have had a very busy week, and will have
an even busier one. Thank you for coming, and we look forward
to the successful outcome of the forthcoming summit and to finding
out what happens next week, as there will no doubt be a statement
in the House on Monday.
4 Note by witness: The UK has always opposed the creation
of a permanent military Operational Headquarters (OHQ) for the
EU. That remains the case. The EU Military Staff (EUMS-established
as a permanent body by the Treaty of Nice in 2000) provides strategic-level
planning advice to the Council, but does not do the operational
planning for EU missions. The changes will affect the way the
EUMS does strategic planning, fostering greater co-operation between
civilians and the military. Back
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