Orders of the Day — Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:30 pm on 4 March 1991.

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Photo of Roger Gale Roger Gale , North Thanet 9:30, 4 March 1991

We are discussing European documents. I wish to press my hon. and learned Friend the Minister a little on the European dimension of this matter and the European approach to it. We recently experienced a lack of cohesion in the European approach to matters in the Gulf. There has been a reawakening of concern in this country—perhaps a slight diminishing of the euphoria about Europe—and a realisation that, in respect of foreign policy at least, the EC still has much to learn. My hon. and learned Friend has said that the Government support Gorbachev the reformer, not Gorbachev the man, that the delivery of support will be related directly to the fact of reform and that that support is not in any way intended to be unconditional. That is the United Kingdom approach, and that is why the Prime Minister will meet first with Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian representatives on his arrival in Moscow tonight.

However, we are discussing European documents and European Community aid. Is it to be made plain in the Council of Ministers that the delivery of support rests upon the fact of reform? Will the Commission hold something in reserve? Will EC technical assistance depend upon economic and political change, or will EC sectarian commercial interests dictate the pace of aid? I should like to know from my hon. and learned Friend the answers to those questions and how he regards the attitude of the Council of Ministers towards the conditions upon which aid is given—the conditions that the Government understand.

Like many other hon. Members, I refer briefly to the situation in Romania. I have a personal interest because my wife is a trustee of the Romanian orphans trust. In recent weeks there have been rather sad and damaging allegations that charity aid, having arrived in Romania, has been misappropriated, that goods have been stolen and sold on the black market, and that assistance that was ostensibly destined for those in terrifying need has been directed elsewhere. Those allegations have been extremely damaging to the cause of those who have been seeking to provide aid from this country. That is why the Romanian orphans trust has concentrated its aid programme upon aid in the form of personnel—for example, doctors, nurses, and paediatricians in child care assistance—upon training Romanians who, at some point, will need to take over the care of the literally thousands of orphans who are still in need in that country, and upon medicines and other essential goods that have been ordered by Romanian orphans trust personnel so that they are targeted and delivered directly to aid teams. Those involved with the Romanian orphans trust are confident that the aid that is so generously given by people in this country reaches the people for whom it is intended and the children towards whom it is directed.

In his reply to the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel), my hon. and learned Friend said that Government aid was targeted at the genuinely needy. Is the method of distributing European Community aid genuinely secure? Can the European Community ensure that goods that it sends to Romania will not be sold on the black market or used to prop up the old guard? The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) said that our constituents, including pensioners, as well as children who donate pocket money, have a right to know where their money is going. They want to know that it is being well spent—that it is not being used to prop up regimes of which they do not approve, or otherwise misappropriated.

I hope that my hon. and learned Friend can assure the House that the European Community and its Council of Ministers will take as much care to safeguard the direction of aid to Romania as is taken by charities like the Romanian orphans trust. I hope, too, that the Council of Ministers will seek to increase the pace of change in Romania. There, as elsewhere in the eastern bloc, aid must be dependent upon economic and political improvements. At the moment, the pace of those improvements is very slow.

Finally, I wish to refer briefly to the situation in the Baltic states. A few weeks ago, I was very privileged to be asked to address a rally in Trafalgar square. On Nelson's column, behind me, were the names of the Lithuanians who had been murdered a few days earlier. In those circumstances, it is not surprising that feeling among the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians at that rally was running very high indeed. Those people made one thing very plain to me, and I, in turn, should like to offer it to the House. They believe that support should be for reform—as was said earlier, not for Gorbachev the reformer or Gorbachev the man, but simply for reform. If President Gorbachev is able to maintain the pace of reform in the eastern bloc, he will deserve support. However, if he is unable to do so, this country and Europe must transfer support and allegiance to those who are prepared to carry the banner of reform.

There have been signs of recognition on the part of the Soviets that the murders in Lithuania were a tremendous mistake, and that they have had very severe and damaging political repercussions. But will the Soviet Government now recognise the strength of the plebiscites in the Baltic states? Can my hon. and learned Friend make plain in the Council of Ministers, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make plain in Moscow this week, that European Community financial, food and technical aid is not, and never will be, unconditional or open-ended?