European Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:21 pm on 5 December 2001.

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Photo of Richard Spring Richard Spring Conservative, West Suffolk 7:21, 5 December 2001

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point, as I know that she takes a particular interest in these matters. Following the events of 11 September, we should explore the position and take the opportunity to derive some benefit from the horror that occurred.

Since the House last debated European affairs, a great step has been taken in the struggle against state-directed terrorism. Last June, Slobodan Milosevic was handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. It is clear that in Europe at least, state terrorism has been shown not to pay for the individuals who direct it. Nevertheless, the western Balkans remains a region of great instability. Ethnic hatreds still hang over the region's future. In Kosovo, much progress has been made and free and fair elections have been held, in which all ethnic groups took part.

That brings us to Macedonia. I am sure that the entire House regrets the continued shootings and strife there, after it seemed that a peaceful settlement had been reached. It is clear that unless a way can be found to give Macedonia's inhabitants stability and security, the whole region will be in danger of another inter-ethnic flare-up.

The military framework for dealing with the Balkan crises has been NATO, and it has proved flexible and successful. European Union countries outside NATO, such as Austria and Finland, have worked with it in peacekeeping operations such as KFOR. We should never risk losing such practical flexibility, which demonstrates NATO's importance and pre-eminence.

The greatest strength of the response to the events of 11 September has been that it was a flexible and layered response within a flexible and layered coalition. It has been flexible in that it has not required every member of the EU to sign up to precisely the same response, and layered in that it has allowed for different levels of enthusiasm, and different levels of participation as a result. Some members have felt unable to make a military contribution in the fight against terrorism directly or to the campaign in Afghanistan in particular, while others have deployed forces or stated their intention to do so.

A single European foreign or defence policy as advocated by Romano Prodi and others would have limited the effectiveness of the European response to that of the lowest common denominator, rather than allowing flexibly for a varied and layered response which allowed the EU to hold together while responding according to individual national capabilities. It is manifestly absurd that the advocates of greater integration have adduced 11 September as a reason for it. In fact, it plays in entirely the opposite direction. We need to ask ourselves this question: what would a single defence and foreign policy on this issue have been? The lesson of the challenge of 11 September shows that a flexible Europe met that challenge as an integrated and harmonised Europe could never have done.