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Iraq

My Lords, I warmly welcome this important debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for giving us this vital opportunity. The timing is excellent, for the recent gains in security in the region and Iraq’s gains in political stability and cohesion achieved in recent months give a unique opportunity to the European Union and its member states to forge the closer permanent relationship that is our policy. There are now most important new opportunities for trade and investment that others are taking on. I spoke in October at the Al Thiqa economic development conference held in Nasiriyah. This was the first ever development conference held in southern Iraq. It was impressive to hear the Ministers for oil, security, housing, roads, water and the Marshes, among others, set out their current expenditure and roll out future plans. The Deputy President, the Deputy Prime Minister and the local governor also spoke. Council members, tribal leaders, other local notables and Members of Parliament took part in the debate. Some of Iraq’s major new investors were present at the conference, including Japan, the principal investor in the south. Another example of successful investors is MTC Al-Atheer, the Kuwait-registered group working with Iraqi partners, which to date has made $2.5 billion worth of investment in Iraq’s mobile telephone network. I learnt too that the French company Lavage had just signed an agreement with the Iraqi Government for three major cement factories to be refurbished, sharing production 40 per cent to the Iraqi Government and 60 per cent Lavage. The possibilities for EU investors now throughout Iraq, not just in northern Kurdistan, are very large indeed. I look to Her Majesty’s Government and to member states to do all that is possible to encourage EU companies to take up the opportunities. Other nations are doing so and we are being left behind. We in the European Union have high competence in building a public administration. Prime Minister Maliki and his Ministers are indeed hard-working and the Parliament is fully functioning. But to be effective, Ministers must be supported by a functioning and competent administration that is committed to serving the people. In Iraq, at all levels of the administration, there is a profound lack in skills in this most important area, but we can help. This crucial gap gives the European Union a chance to show our special skills in capacity and institution building as well as in training. Of course, creating a public service ethos in Iraq will require a complete reversal of the former position which the previous administration took. As we in the European Union know well from our work in central and eastern Europe throughout the enlargement process, dictatorship thrives on public control and turns away from serving the public interest. To help Iraq reverse the dismal administrative situation it inherited we need to make close partnerships with the public service ministries, particularly health, which is a key priority for Prime Minister Maliki to help in building up a functioning and significantly less corrupt public sector. I hope that Prime Minister Maliki will visit the European Union soon. If he does, I would like us to be able to present him with the package of training and institution and capacity building in public health and education that Iraq so sorely needs. Public health is a key, essential element in stabilisation and association processes. Access to public health is a millennium development goal. In October I had the opportunity, and again two weeks ago, to address the Iraqi Parliament in plenary session—not once but twice. I was their first official visitor and it was a great honour to address them. I learnt immediately how much assistance they need. We in the European Parliament, in consequence, are setting up a permanent ad hoc delegation to Iraq. We have a new rapporteur for an Iraq report—a close friend of mine, the socialist Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, Ana Gomes—and I am her shadow for the next report. We believe that strengthening Parliament’s ties is one of the key ways in which we can assist the democratic process. Iraq has a permanent standing constitution committee, because there are still problems in the constitution. We can assist. Women’s issues are a key area in today’s Iraq. My colleague Ana Gomes is on the women’s committee in the European Parliament. We at once vowed that we would create those ties officially as well as informally. Then there are the issues of how to frame and progress laws and the essential links that are still missing between Ministers and their civil servants in drafting laws and for Parliament in progressing them. Proper parliamentary procedures are still not in place. Those needs are vital and we can help. Iraq has a true parliament and a wholly secular constitution. It is one of the very few nations in the region to have such a constitution, despite its flaws. We should do all that we can to help the Iraqis to strengthen the democratic process. The rule of law is critical to a functioning democracy. I pay tribute to the Council of Ministers and the EUJUST LEX exercise which has trained so many judges and magistrates. I am proud that, through this mechanism, we have trained 24,000 election monitors, who I saw working so hard in the 2005 elections in January and December of that year. However, there must be cohesion in the European Union institutional approach if we are to succeed. There must be closer co-ordination also between member states. It is now possible, at last, to have a unified EU approach. Past national divisions have healed and the way ahead is clear. It will require careful, dedicated and patient work to deliver what we have promised to the Iraqi people. Like us, the people of Iraq demand democracy and good governance. They demand and need the provision of basic rights, basic services and the full complement of those enjoyments of privileges that we have in our democracies in western Europe. We have come a long way towards delivering that goal, and with the EU newly united on the issue of Iraq, I believe that we can achieve much more in partnership and co-operation with the Government, the parliament, the administration and the people of Iraq. I would suggest that the prize of a stable Iraq exercising a benign influence regionally and internationally is worth every effort to attain. I hope for and work towards the enlargement of the European Union to incorporate Turkey, when Iraq will become our next-door neighbour. In conclusion, if there is a lesson to learn, I suggest that we should not allow past challenges to inhibit and cloud the future. We should not use yesterday’s problems to stop moving forward. We must move on.