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British Association For Central and Eastern Europe

My Lords, I must begin by declaring an interest. I was for 12 years a member of the governing body of what was then the Great Britain-East Europe Centre and chairman from 1987 to 1990. Like the noble Lord, Lord Radice, I should like on this occasion to congratulate those who have done so much over the 40 years’ life of the two bodies—the body which transformed its name in 1991 to the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe—on what has been an extraordinary service and an extremely important part of our country’s external relations at very little cost. As the noble Lord, Lord Radice, said, we celebrate and we regret. I congratulate him on his period of 10 years as chairman of the governing body, a period which has not been an easy one but one in which, as he said—and I shall return to it—the organisation has moved particularly towards the west Balkans and into other areas, including Ukraine, and involving even people from Belarus, discussing questions and reporting human rights. These informal approaches are extremely important in those countries. The 40 years of BACEE’s existence can be divided into three periods. The first 20 years was the period of the Cold War. During that period only four countries were involved—Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. Then there was the period of transition at the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, with the addition of Poland in 1986, the Baltic states and Albania and more recently the concentration on the successor states of former Yugoslavia, together with Turkey, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. I first heard of the plans for the creation of the Great Britain-East Europe Centre when I was visiting Romania in 1966. It was in the flat of John Birch, who was first secretary in the British Embassy. Doreen Berry, who had been a senior official in the external services of the BBC and who was to be deputy director of the centre, was also visiting Bucharest and over dinner I heard what was planned to create this centre. When the centre went public in the following year, it was my noble friend Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank who was the Minister responsible for the launch of the Great Britain-East Europe Centre. The governing body was then under the very distinguished chairmanship of Sir Gilbert Longden, a Conservative, with John Mackintosh, then a Labour Member of Parliament, as the vice-chairman. The centre and BACEE have had chairmen from both Houses throughout their existence. Sir Gilbert Longden was followed by the late Lord Walston and then myself. I was followed by Nigel Forman, at that time a Conservative MP, and then the late Lord Kelvedon, who was succeeded by the noble Lord, Lord Radice. It has also benefited from a remarkable series of retired diplomats who have been directors. The first two were Sir William Harpham and Sir Donald Logan, followed by Alan Brooke Turner and then, as the noble Lord, Lord Radice, said, Sir John Birch and, most recently, Nicholas Jarrold. As well as bringing together members of both Houses, the governing body has also been able to draw on a remarkable number of academics, journalists, lawyers and businessmen who gave their time not only in participating in the work of the governing body but also in round tables, study tours, giving advice to visitors and providing talks to visitors when they came to this country. We made an estimate that if you were to value the time that was given by the members of the governing body in various ways it was equivalent to the funds provided each year by the Foreign Office. The early period of the Cold War was not always easy. Some countries were more prepared for serious exchanges than others. The first round table I attended as a very new Member of Parliament in 1970 was an Anglo-Hungarian round table held in Brasenose College, Oxford. It was a success and the Hungarians seemed interested to be exposed to the range of free ideas coming from the British participants. Indeed, my impression looking back over that period was that the Hungarians were always more open than most of their partners in the exchanges. Finding effective partners was not always easy at that time. Inevitably they were official and, although there was a range of people, there were some who were closer to the centre of power in their countries than others. We thought it was useful that we were able to expose them to the sorts of ideas and societies which we represented. After the Hungarians, we had very good relations with the Bulgarians, perhaps because the first two directors had previously served as ambassadors in Bulgaria and therefore had very good contacts in that country. With Hungary and Bulgaria the round tables were able to cover a wide range of issues, including political ones. With Czechoslovakia and Romania the situation was rather more difficult, particularly in Czechoslovakia after the events of 1968, the time of the inception of the centre. Indeed we had to limit ourselves to having rather technical exchanges. I remember the ultimate one being discussions about hill farming in Bohemia related to hill farming in Wales. Similarly, with the gradual hardening of the situation in Romania under Ceausescu, the ground was not particularly fertile. As the noble Lord, Lord Radice, said, however, the most interesting period in many ways was the extraordinary work which, after 1991, BACEE was able to do at the end of the Cold War with the departure of the Soviet forces. About 5,500 politicians, civil servants, judges, journalists and businessmen, who would form civil society as potential governors and potential governments, came not to be lectured but to see how democracy worked under the rule of law in a market society. The discussions and exchanges have proved very useful. They have left us with a very useful network of friends, not only of BACEE but of this country, in the countries concerned. The third phase was towards the beginning of this century when attention moved from the countries that were well on their way to joining NATO and the European Union to the countries of former Yugoslavia and those neighbouring what are now the borders of the European Union—Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. As has been mentioned, probably the most interesting thing here—very much the inspiration of Sir John Birch—was the creation of the New Serbia Forum which provided a framework for the people who were going to provide the post-Milosevic government in Belgrade to get to know each other, to work together and to draw up the plans for a democratic and free Serbia. I believe that the successor states of Yugoslavia—states such as Bosnia, Macedonia and, though not a successor state, Albania—still need the sort of assistance which has been provided by BACEE over the years. This informal, second-track form of co-operation is able to do things in a particularly helpful way. In the same way Moldova and the Ukraine, which are developing democracies, need continued assistance. BACEE’s methods will continue to be invaluable and that is why, like the noble Lord, Lord Radice, I hope that the Minister can say that, although the organisation is no longer in existence, the work which it has been doing can be continued by new methods.