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European Affairs

I shall have to curtail my speech somewhat, because of the length of the speeches made by certain Members who have spoken before me. I should like to mention the EU-Africa conference, about which there has not been a great deal of discussion this evening. Twenty-six of the 27 EU leaders attended the conference. The only one who was missing was, of course, our own Prime Minister. I should like to congratulate the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on her stance. She attended the conference and used the opportunity to berate Mugabe and to highlight the anger that we Europeans feel towards him about what he is doing to his own country. It is a difficult situation, of course, because no one would want to shake the hand of Mugabe. Nevertheless, the conference was extremely important. Issues of immigration, aid, security, climate change and trade were all discussed. I am a little concerned about the total focus on Mugabe. Having just returned from Darfur, where I saw the extraordinary suffering of the people of that region, and having met the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, I believe that there are people in Africa who are just as bad as Mugabe, if not worse. Mugabe is awful, but he must not be allowed to stop important countries such as Great Britain from attending major international conferences. After all, billions of pounds of British taxpayers' money goes in aid to Africa, and it is vital for us to take part in those talks. It is the first time that we have had such a conference in seven years. I know that I am in a tiny minority, because all three political parties have backed the Prime Minister's not going to the conference. I, however, must take the opportunity to speak out against it. I want to explain why. I feel passionately about the Helsinki agreement, which represented the first steps in the liberation of the eastern European countries. The great politicians of the west engaged for the first time with the dictators and oppressors of eastern Europe. It must have been difficult for Harold Wilson and his colleagues to meet people like Ceausescu, Brezhnev and other oppressors and dictators, but it was an important first step in securing freedom for that region. News of the discussions and the west's determination to get better human rights for the people of eastern Europe filtered through to those people on the BBC world news and through other media. I, for one, believe that the Prime Minister should have attended the conference, and I regret that he did not. My second brief point, because I want to ensure that my two colleagues get a chance to speak, is on Kosovo. I met the Foreign Secretary of Serbia a few weeks ago and he impressed me greatly. He was one of the many young political activists who fought against the brutal dictatorship of Milosevic. Like many others, he put his life on the line because of his determination to fight that dictator and oppressor. Who can forget the terrible struggles of 2000, when we saw on television the courage of those people who fought the oppression and brutality of Milosevic? Of course, someone like the Serbian Foreign Minister, who is a democrat and a decent, honourable man—