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British Association For Central and Eastern Europe

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Radice on introducing the debate. As we have heard, this is an issue in which he and others have a long-standing interest. I am honoured to have the opportunity to reply to him. Of the many important things that I learnt tonight, the least consequential was that my colleagues in the Foreign Office misled me about the pronunciation of BACEE. I was told it was said like Bassey in Shirley Bassey. I now realise that one consequence of Foreign Office cuts is that clearly it does not follow the American entertainment scene closely enough—it meant Count Basie. More seriously, and with great humility, I concur with all noble Lords who have spoken that the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe has clearly done extraordinary work during the past 40 years in central and eastern Europe. Tonight, as much as anything, it is important that we note that work, honour it and recognise that the terms of the association’s closure are something that few government programmes anywhere, sadly, meet, which is that it has achieved redundancy through the success of its mission. It has been closed not only because others can now take on the task that is left but principally because the core of the task has been fulfilled. These countries, barren of civil society and democratic tradition when the association began its work 40 years ago, are now, for the most part, thriving, prosperous and democratic members of the European Union. The Foreign Secretary recognised this when he wrote recently to my noble friend Lord Radice. He thanked all who had worked for BACEE for their dedication and highlighted the invaluable contribution that the organisation had made in building a closer understanding between Britain and central and eastern Europe. My noble friend Lord Radice, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, laid out at considerable length the many successes of the British Association for Central and Eastern Europe since its birth in 1967. It was born when relations were difficult between us and countries in eastern Europe, when traditional diplomacy was constrained by the stand-offs of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain and when we had to find unconventional means to reach into those societies to build friendships and to open eyes to liberty and freedom. Against the backdrop of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the association during those dark and difficult years kept links and was able to work in countries where government organisations such as the Foreign Office found it difficult to operate. BACEE worked hard in that period to promote a closer understanding between the British people and the countries of central and eastern Europe. It pursued its aim of promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Europe through conferences, seminars, round tables and study visits in the UK and abroad. We face a very different context because of dramatic changes during the short life of the organisation. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union has collapsed and many countries have emerged that are keen to join the European Union or that have closer ties with the EU than they did before. Throughout the political turbulence, BACEE focused its efforts on building democratic institutions and market economies, freedom of expression, the effective administration of justice and respect for human rights. It added to its study tours and worked in new countries, focusing on Ukraine, Belarus and others where it did not initially work. Nevertheless, in many regards, much of that mission has been accomplished. In particular, since 1991, as has been mentioned, 5,500 people from those countries have participated in BACEE programmes. These include more than 60 former or current Ministers, four heads of government and 10 Foreign Ministers. BACEE’s founders, whom we have honoured tonight, never faltered in their belief that both halves of a then divided Europe shared a common destiny. They have been proved right: 10 of the central and eastern European countries where they worked are now members of the European Union; Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey have candidate status; and others are keen to join the EU in time. We remain committed to promoting the enlargement of the European Union, as we see enlargement as one of the most successful policy tools of achieving democracy, market reform and the rule of law. All of us who watched the efforts of candidate countries to adjust to meet the test of addressing their democracy deficits—corruption, lack of rule of law and issues of market liberalisation—know that the lever of membership of the Union in its own ways built on the BACEE concept and moved that agenda dramatically forward. In a letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2005, Douglas Alexander, then a junior Minister in the Foreign Office, recognised the work that BACEE had done. He noted that its project work had helped to underpin the remarkable reforms that we have seen in the region in recent years. While we can celebrate what has been achieved, I agree with the noble Baroness that we should not complacently believe that the work is done and that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are cemented and set in stone throughout the region. There are important tasks ahead of us. I assure the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, that we continue to invest in this area. The Foreign Office still spends £8 million a year on promoting stability, good governance and market reforms in the pre-accession and neighbourhood countries. While the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, was brave enough to mention the Lisbon treaty and the European Union, let me make a debating point. The European Union spends £3 billion a year on the same group of countries to support their efforts to prepare for membership, in the promotion of democracy and the rule of law and the building of market economies. The good Count’s work, by which I mean BACEE, remains very much a subject of priority attention here and in the European Union as a whole. I am delighted that BACEE does not end here tonight or that it ended when it closed its doors as an active organisation. The association has decided to perpetuate its name and its valuable work through an annual lecture on a theme related to that work. My noble friend said that he hoped that the first lecture would be this autumn, under the auspices of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, in a fine room in the Foreign Office. Like him, I was glad to hear that things other than wine came in fine forms. We hope that the Foreign Secretary will be able to give that first lecture, but my noble friend informed me of this hope only this afternoon and I have not had an opportunity to confirm whether the Foreign Secretary will be able to take up that invitation. In closing, I add my thanks and congratulations to the thanks and praise that have been advanced in this debate for all who were directors of BACEE, those who were members of its board and those who chaired it during the past 40 years. If ever there has been an historic achievement that has changed the direction of our world in the past 40 years, it is the securing of freedom for the countries of the former Soviet Union. BACEE has played an honoured and honourable role, which history will remember proudly, in the liberation of that region.