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EU: Enlargement (EUC Report)

My Lords, it is an indication of the effectiveness of the chairman of the Select Committee that he was able to arrange that we could have a debate on this topic on Europe Day. It is obviously useful that we should have a chance to celebrate what has been one of the real achievements of the European Union in this century, the fifth range of enlargement. I also want to say how much I welcomed the Government’s response to our report because it picked up and in almost every respect agreed with the points made by the Select Committee. I regret, as the report does, that less was done in 2004 to reinforce not only in this country but throughout the whole of the European Union the remarkable achievement we had made in making sure that there was an enlargement first to the 10 countries and then to 12—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. To some extent, that enlargement in 2004, finalised by the addition of Bulgaria and Romania at the beginning of this year, marked the end of the 20th century. It was a significant point in the historical development of our continent. Despite its overall success I should like to say how much I agreed with two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, in his remarks about flaws in that enlargement. First, we may have made a mistake over Cyprus. Failing to ensure that it had solved its internal problems before entry may have been a mistake, but we have to remember that at the time the European Union was possibly faced with the risk of Greek action to prevent any enlargement unless Cyprus was allowed to come in. However, it was a very unsatisfactory solution, and, as we can see in the consequences for Turkish accession, we are suffering from the decisions we took at that time. The second point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, with which I concur, concerned the mistake—this applies particularly to the cases of enlargement to Bulgaria and Romania—of fixing target dates. The announcement of target dates in advance removed the leverage the European Union would otherwise have had to ensure adequate judicial administrative reform before accession. Certainly, recent developments and instability in Romania’s political structure since enlargement are worrying. Before going on to look in more detail at the issues of the next round of enlargement to the western Balkans and Turkey, we should remember the members of the European Economic Area and Switzerland, four further countries—the others are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein—that could all presumably become members fairly quickly if they so wished. We tend to think about the difficult countries, but there are four countries in Europe that would be very welcome if their people were prepared to look at membership. From time to time we hear from Norwegian and Icelandic politicians, occasionally even from a Swiss politician, who would argue that enlargement to them should be encouraged. Politically, the situation in the western Balkans has become probably more complex and more difficult than last year, when we were considering the countries en bloc in our report. I totally agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell: the Thessaloniki commitment of the European Union to the countries of the western Balkans must be maintained. We are pleased that Croatia is making such significant progress. The European Union Committee recently had an opportunity to hear the ambassador from Croatia, who was able to give us evidence of the progress being made. When we go beyond Croatia, however, we begin to find problems. I hope that the Minister will tell us why there has been a delay in opening negotiations with Macedonia, even though it was agreed that that country should have candidate status. In two of the other smaller countries, things seem to be going somewhat better. The technical negotiations are complete on the stabilisation and association agreement with Montenegro, and Commissioner Rehn and the Prime Minister initialled it on 15 March 2007. It looks as if Montenegro is moving in the right direction. Similarly, although Albania has a long way to come and has a number of difficult internal political problems at the moment, there is slow but steady progress. It is when we come to the remaining three countries in the western Balkans that we really have some difficulties. In Bosnia-Herzegovina the situation has probably slowed down since we considered the matter last year. A Government has still not been formed. There will be a replacement for Dr Schwarz-Schilling as High Representative, but there are still noises from Mr Dodic in Republika Srpska suggesting that he will want to see the knock-on effect of a Kosovo agreement. We should obviously continue to work with Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the progress will be slow. It is necessary that the option of membership is maintained. Serbia, if anything, is more difficult. The domestic politics are depressing. The news yesterday that the parliament has elected a speaker from the Radical party suggested that the rather more democratic parties were not able to hang together even to choose a speaker for their parliament. It is a paradox: if there is a country in the western Balkans that, in terms of its administrative structure and economic readiness, could be a member and begin negotiations relatively quickly, it is Serbia. The stabilisation and association agreement is virtually negotiated. None the less, it is difficult to be optimistic, given the continued ““ambiguity””, to be polite, of Serbian attitudes regarding General Mladic and the failure to deal seriously with those who are protecting him. The only grounds for optimism are that if a decision is made in the United Nations in the next few weeks over Kosovo, the Serbs will then perhaps have to accept reality and may be in a better position both to form a Government and to start some serious negotiations with the European Union. I will not say too much about Kosovo because, even as we meet here, discussions are going on at the UN about a possible settlement. If agreement is not reached, however, that will again be a problem. Turkey is much more difficult even than the western Balkans. I support the view in our report that we should look forward to the continuation and, we hope, the completion of negotiations with Turkey. Since we completed the report, however, I have become more aware of a need for us in this country to have a dialogue with our partners in other European countries trying to deal with the fears and misgivings that exist in other member states about Turkish membership. It is no use Britain just appearing as a country that is in favour of enlargement for enlargement’s sake; we have to make the argument for why Turkish membership would be to the advantage of the European Union, and I am not sure we do that enough at the moment. We need to look at that. I am less worried than some about the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. It is likely to be at least 10 years before Turkish negotiations are continued, and while some prime ministers remain for 10 years, many of them do not do so for much more than that. There may well be a different president of France in office when we come to the conclusion of the negotiations. Here perhaps I am wrong, but I take a different view on the question of the current debate between the secularists and the political parties within Turkey. This is a dilemma in the development of Turkish democracy that is bound to occur, and needs to. The debate may be healthy for those in Turkey if they are able to work out a new and more appropriate balance—at least, I would like to think so. In our report we referred to the European neighbourhood policy, which is sometimes suggested as an alternative to membership of the European Union. It would be a mistake to see it in that way. In some countries—those in North Africa, for example—it is a sensible alternative, but for those who are European neighbours it should be seen as a situation where they can work, modernise, improve and perhaps adapt themselves so that they become valid candidates for membership. I believe that we could see, not necessarily in my lifetime but perhaps in the next 20 to 30 years, European Union membership for the Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. They should not be excluded, nor should they automatically be offered membership at this stage. This is an important report. It points the way to a number of the areas of policy that we in this country have to take forward in the development of the Union in the years to come.