3
Corrected transcript of evidence taken before
The Select Committee on the European Union
Sub-Committee C (External Affairs)
Inquiry on
Evidence Session No. 10 Questions 154 - 164
Witnesses: Mr Pierre Vimont, Mr Luis Felipe Fernández-de-la-Peña and Mr Gunnar Wiegand
Baroness Billingham
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
________________
Mr Pierre Vimont, Executive Secretary, European External Action Service, Mr Luis Felipe Fernández-de-la-Peña, Managing Director for Europe and Central Asia, European External Action Service, and Mr Gunnar Wiegand, Director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Regional Cooperation and OSCE, European External Action Service
Q154 The Chairman: Mr Vimont, thank you very much for coming before us. I think you know that we are engaged on an inquiry into relationships between the EU and Russia. We have been taking evidence in London from a wide variety of people. We are here in Brussels and we will be going to Berlin. Meeting you is obviously a very important part of that. The evidence will be on the record, but if there is anything you wish to say off the record, we will certainly respect that.
We have a number of questions and I am sure that there will be supplementary ones, but perhaps I could start with a general one. There has been a certain amount of criticism that the Commission, on behalf of the EU, proceeded with all these technical matters over a DCFTA with Ukraine, without being aware of the strategic and geopolitical implications from the Russian point of view. Do you think that is a fair criticism? Secondly, as everybody seems to have been taken so much by surprise when the Russians raised objections, I cannot understand why the missions in the British, French and German embassies in Moscow did not pick up that this was a sensitive issue in Russia and report back to their capitals. There seems to have been some sort of failure of analysis in this respect.
Mr Pierre Vimont: You have to look at the whole record, right from the beginning when we try to assemble all this, because this is a long story that started a long time ago. In fact, if I look at the record of where we were, it was back in October 2003 that we proposed that Russia joined the European Neighbourhood Policy, so as to be part of that. We had not defined what the status would be but we were ready to discuss that with them. They declined the offer, and therefore we agreed instead with them what we should do in the framework of the European-Russian relationship. We had four common spaces that we decided to agree upon.
We went on with this and when we set up the Eastern Partnership, which was inside the Neighbourhood Policy as one part of it, we also proposed and organised an information group. What we created was in fact called the information and communication group, with the intention of informing and having exchanges with some of the partners outside the Eastern Partnership that we thought would be interested in knowing more about this partnership. We had partners such as the United States, Turkey and Russia, so Russia participated. We had four of these meetings and they (the Russians) never said a word, so we went on from there with our negotiation of the association agreement with Ukraine. At any of the meetings we had with Russia—summits twice a year, and several other meetings at ministerial and at a more technical level—they never said a word about what was going on with the association agreement or its negotiation. I took part, as did Luis Felipe, in some of the summits twice a year, as I was saying, and President Putin never raised the issue of the association agreement with Ukraine. Had he wanted to be, he could have been very forthcoming with criticism about, for instance, the third package on energy matters or other issues of that sort. Never did he raise the issue of association agreements.
It was only when we came near to the Vilnius summit in the summer of 2013 that we suddenly started to see the attitude of Russia changing from what it was before. If you look again at the figure, I have to remind you that the DCFTA—not the association agreement—had already been initialled. That took place in March 2012. Then during summer 2013 we saw Armenia, who told us first of all that they were having difficulties with our project of that association agreement. Then we could see easily on our screen meetings take place between President Yanukovych and President Putin, and as we were moving towards Vilnius we saw that things were getting worse. But from 2003 up until 2013, we had in fact proposed that Russia should be on board and participate in a Neighbourhood Policy and then to be part of the information group meetings. There were the regular meetings that we had with them, but never was this issue raised and it was only around the Vilnius summit that the Russians became very vocal.
I could add—but here again, this has become part of the history that you know very well—that, since the Vilnius summit, we have taken unprecedented steps to inform Russia and create a sort of direct bilateral with Russia and later trilateral exchange also with Ukraine on the issue of the association agreement, which is normally bilateral. We usually do not talk with a third party about a bilateral agreement, but we made an exception precisely because of Russian insistence and the fact that they were complaining that we had not taken them into account. First, we created a channel of bilateral meetings in November 2013; we had two at senior expert level starting in March 2014, and we had two meetings until June. Then, at that time, we decided to go for a trilateral meeting with Ukraine. It is in the framework of that trilateral meeting, which took place at technical level and then at what I would call ministerial level—with Commissioner De Gucht involved—that we managed to find an agreement between the three parties, which was to ratify the association agreement but leave aside for the time being the commercial part, the DCFTA, and postpone it until the end of next year while keeping on with the autonomous trade measures.
Our impression is that we never really had any clear warning, on behalf of the Russians, that this was unacceptable to them, for many years; it came only at the last moment. As much as we could, leaving aside the fact that this is a bilateral agreement, we decided that we would go into discussion with them to try to alleviate some of their concerns and understand better what they were talking about. When we had those bilateral meetings where our trade people explained all the intricacies of the DCFTA—we had some even before Vilnius—we never really got from our Russian counterparts any clear and precise indication of what was wrong for them with the DCFTA.
The Chairman: Do you think this was perhaps because they thought that, in the end, the Ukrainians would not sign? It is rather strange that the Russians should have behaved in this manner.
Mr Pierre Vimont: Looking at how President Yanukovych behaved, that could go along with your line. But it is always very difficult to make accurate assumptions about what the Russian strategy really is and what they had in mind.
Q155 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Some of the witnesses to our inquiry have said that they regarded the EU foreign policy as being Utopian and full of “wishy-washy good intentions”. One of our witnesses, a former British ambassador, said that the EU was good at trade but was not a geopolitical player. Consistent with that, others have suggested that things like the four spaces and the partnership for modernisation were too vague and relied too much on Russian good will.
Mr Pierre Vimont: First of all, the proposals that we put on the table, the four common spaces and the partnership for modernisation, were agreed by our Russian counterparts. We have been working on this with their full knowledge and agreement, and we have had many meetings with them on these issues—even at ministerial level, with Minister Lavrov at the Foreign Affairs Council. These were informal meetings, taking place at lunchtime. Minister Lavrov was very much committed to the partnership for modernisation, but underlined that this needed time; it brought many challenges for the Russian side, because it meant having many important reforms, and they were going through that as much as they could. Therefore, they needed time, instead of what the European Union was asking for, which was to push forward as speedily as we could. So I do not think it was so wishy-washy. We were clear about this; we went into this open-eyed, with a clear understanding of what our interests were, and the common interests with Russia and ourselves.
We managed, by the way, to get some tangible and significant results in those discussions, in the way we moved forward. It was certainly about trade, because we managed to increase our trade exchanges threefold in 10 years; but it was also about moving into some other issues on which we were both eager to move ahead, such as the Tempus Erasmus Mundus, and the research programmes. We have had some concrete issues and results in different fields on which we were eager to move ahead. We should look at this, maybe with a broader perspective than only looking at Ukraine, which was a specific aspect on which we could come back and forth—and I am sure that we will go on with that. But one has to understand that we had many other issues that we discussed, and on which we put up a strong defence and had a positive attitude, which allowed us to get some good results.
Q156 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: This goes back to the discussion that we had the last time that I met you, when we were doing an inquiry on the European External Action Service. The expertise of Europe is on trade and development, so its external policy tends to consist of trade matters and spending money for development. That is a very different skill from diplomacy or dealing with wider political issues; diplomats who are doing that day to day develop a different sort of expertise. Yet here we were using the trade weapon and expertise and the development expertise, and almost sleepwalking into what became a very dangerous situation.
Mr Pierre Vimont: It is something of a contradiction for me to respond to that, because I am a diplomat.
Mr Luis Felipe Fernández-de-la-Peña: Me too.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: I know that you have been a very distinguished one.
Mr Pierre Vimont: Luis Felipe will certainly intervene on that. But first of all, you have to understand that, even before the setting up of the EEAS, on the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement with Russia there was already political dialogue; it was not only about trade or, going a little bit further, about education. It was for instance and it has been since then, about visas, which is a very political issue. So we have a certain tradition and habit of working on this, and I think we knew perfectly well the difficulties and dangers—we can go back into this—because even on this, member states were divided, and we had to bring them all together back on the right course. So we knew that all this had a very strong political component; we were very much aware of that. Without pretending to be too smart, we had a pretty good idea of where Russia wanted to go.
What was to some extent not really surprising but perhaps explained how, at that time Russia accepted it, was that there had been a change of leadership during those years. During many of these years from 2003 until the Vilnius summit in 2013, what was interesting was that Russia seemed ready to move along with this idea that we were going to have upgraded association agreements not only with Ukraine but also with other members of our Eastern Partnership. They went along with that. It is mostly in the last few months that they decided to change their attitude, which seems to indicate a change of heart in Moscow, but that was not there before.
The Chairman: Can you hazard a view as to why they would suddenly have changed their position?
Mr Pierre Vimont: It is difficult to say. There you get into what policy and strategy are being followed by President Putin, and for what reason he is following them. Even if you look at a crisis like Ukraine—leaving aside Crimea, which went very swiftly, and which indicated a clear mindset about what the Russian authorities and the Russian president wanted to do—it is a bit more complicated with regard to eastern Ukraine. It is a less clear picture that we are witnessing there, with moves from the Russian army in one direction, and then moves backwards, and so on. I find it more difficult to try to give a clear explanation about what is the ultimate goal of the Russian Government.
Q157 Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Thank you. From the outside, it seems as if there is not quite the interconnection and structural organisation that we now need, if we are to make progress on these issues. We have seen to some extent a downgrading of the Russian expertise in national embassies. We do not seem to have compensated for that in the European institutions. In your initial statement, you indicated that you had been taken by surprise, although what you subsequently said was that you had not been totally surprised by the changes in the Russian position. How do you think we should build up expertise to have strategic discussions with Russia? After all, they have raised strategic issues in the past—for example, the question of free trade from Lisbon to Vladivostok, European security, and the question of a Eurasian customs union and European partnership organisations. How do we make it possible for us to get together and resolve these problems before they blow up in our face?
Mr Pierre Vimont: There are two parts in your question, my Lord. I will take the second part first. We have been dealing with many of these challenges for many years. For example, on Lisbon to Vladivostok, we have discussed the idea of a European economic area for many years with the Russians. The precise issue, which is a difficult one, is how to get into the details and practicalities of such an idea. We have always been very open to this idea. Even recently, at the last summit meeting that President Barroso and President Van Rompuy had with Putin, once again the Russian side said that they were interested in that discussion. Many of our colleagues who have been dealing with their Russian counterparts on this issue for many years have come back from Moscow with the impression that this was a very nice motto, but as soon as they wanted to get into a more practical and concrete move and to take action, it became very difficult because we could not find real common ground on which to have discussions with our Russian counterparts.
What you said about this European economic area, you also could say about the idea of the new architecture for European security that was launched in the framework of the OSCE a few years ago. This was mostly within the competence of the member states, but most member states had great difficulty in grasping the reality for the Russian side behind this. Many times at all levels, at European levels, we have said to our Russian counterparts that we were interested and ready to see how we could move ahead and try to see what this would mean. At the end of the day, we have never got very far.
The second part of your question was about expertise. I do not want to look too self-assured about our expertise, but we have some rather good experts—Luis Filipe, the former Spanish ambassador to Moscow, and Gunnar Wiegand who has been working on this issue for many years, both present here today. We have a lot of Russian-speaking experts in our team and people who have been travelling back and forth to Moscow. At present, in our delegation in Moscow, we have an ambassador who speaks fluent Russian—how old is he?
Mr Luis Felipe Fernández-de-la-Peña: Old enough.
Mr Pierre Vimont: He is old enough to have taken part during the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union army. So he knows the system rather well from the inside.
Coming from my country, I was rather impressed by the level of expertise we found at the European level compared to the expertise I could find in the French Foreign Office. So we are well equipped. The problem remains that it is not an easy political situation to read in Moscow. Even our delegation, the embassies and the missions of our member states in Moscow may have difficulty, which is understandable. It is not all that easy to come out with a clear understanding and a definitive assessment and analysis of what is going on. You have different circles and perhaps different trends in Russian power, which need to be taken into account.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Could you make any recommendations as to how to improve our understanding of what is going on?
Mr Pierre Vimont: Luis Felipe who comes from Moscow could certainly tell you more about this. But what we are trying to do for the time being is share information as much as possible between the heads of mission in Moscow. They have regular meetings and they are very open. They send reports here and to their capitals. As always, it is best to put everything we know together to see if we can get some new ideas about how to understand what is going on.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Does the External Action Service feed in to this collectivity of views that is expressed to the other divisions?
Mr Pierre Vimont: We also keep very much in touch with the think tanks which report regularly on Russian affairs. Luis Filipe and Gunnar frequently go to those meetings. We are very much in touch with civil society to get a better understanding of what is happening on the ground. It is about going out of our inner circle in Brussels as much as we can because that is very important too.
Q158 Baroness Billingham: You have just mentioned civil society and engagement with it. Communication is imperative in that area so that people know what is going on and the themes. I want to know what processes are in place for communicating the aims and means of EU policy vis-à-vis Russia to interested stakeholders and in the interests of EU solidarity.
Mr Pierre Vimont: The whole issue of the civil society organisation is an important component of our relationship with Russia. As you know, we have the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. Something like 120 CSOs engage from the EU and from Russia. It was set up in 2011 and is being supported by us. We have regular contacts with the CSOs on the European and the Russian sides. We participate in all kinds of events organised by NGOs and think tanks. With the help and assistance of the European Parliament, we have also participated in many meetings and conferences with these civil society organisations.
Of course, this is very much related to the whole issue of human rights. There also, as you know, we have regular consultation with Russia. Since 2005, we have had a biannual exercise, either formally through preparatory meetings or informally through papers. We are in touch with NGOs who give us their opinion about what is going on on the ground. We take that on board in order to deliver it afterwards when we meet our Russian counterparts. The problem is that the last round we had with Russia was in November 2013, one year ago. Since then we have not had a meeting, although we should meet twice a year. Although we have not been able to have another meeting with our Russian counterparts, we are still pushing hard.
Baroness Billingham: I am interested in what you are saying. Could you give an example of a recent conference or an exchange of views that you had that uses the format you have just outlined? It includes people coming forward from the European Parliament, which is vital. Have you got anything recent that you can give?
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: In the next month, there will be the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum—civil society organisations from all member states and from Russia will meet in Tallinn. Unfortunately, currently the conditions prevent such a meeting taking place in Russia.
The interaction with the European Parliament is very close through the delegation for relations with Russia. There are very frequent meetings between them and the Duma, as well as meetings where only European parliamentarians participate. They frequently call on us to join them. There is not a lack of contact with parliamentarians or civil society, and there is business.
Baroness Billingham: What is the follow up? Where do the outcomes get promoted? Within the European Union or within your service, how are those ideas promoted and supported?
Mr Pierre Vimont: Usually, we exchange on a regular basis with all member states in different working groups or whatever. When there is a particular case that appears or comes up about human rights, we then go and make representations in Moscow if necessary. This is kind of regular work that we are doing with regard to human rights.
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: The NGO legislation in Russia is an important case in point. From it arose a particular interest in our services among parliamentarians. We took this up not only with the Minister of Foreign Affairs but also with the Ministry of Justice, which was the relevant body, as well as with individual members of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights of the Russian Federation.
Baroness Billingham: I am sorry to hog this, but just to follow up, do you give these deliberations and the examples you just gave the full weight of publicity, so that not only people within the EU hierarchy but the general public know what is going on as well? It is in their interests that that information is shared.
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: Sometimes the sharing of that information is important with stakeholders but not necessarily the wider public. The moment you go public, the partners with whom you discuss become less inclined to change either the legislation or implementation. That is a dilemma that we face in many of these cases.
Q159 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: I just wanted to ask a general question following on from that. The EU lays a lot of emphasis on promoting human rights and democracy. Countries such as Russia or Iran are very sensitive about this. How do you strike a balance—you must have thought about this many times in your career as a diplomat—between doing this promotion and trying to persuade people that you are not interfering in their country or going for regime change? What is the right balance when you have to live with authoritarian regimes?
Mr Pierre Vimont: It is a very delicate balance, I agree with you. But coming back to what you were saying previously, it is also a work in progress inside this new service that we call the EEAS. I agree with you, my Lord, that the way the previous framework worked, where you had on the one side the member states and on the other side the Commission, was more about defending the values of human rights in the context of human rights itself. Now that we are in the broader context of foreign policy, we have to think about this delicate balance. How far you can go is something you learn by acting, by practice. Sometimes your counterparts are very unhappy and tell you so, but that is part of what we have to do.
By the way, one has to recognise that quite often member states are very happy with this division of labour where they leave it to the EU to promote and defend human rights, whereas they remain sometimes a little bit silent on that. We have to be aware of that and to play our part as we should do. As Gunnar said, sometimes it is about saying plainly what we think about the violation of human rights, but doing it in a way that is not made public. In other cases we need to do it publicly when we think it is important to make it public. It very much depends. This is on a case-by-case basis, I guess.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Russia is very sensitive about interference in internal affairs and the threat of regime change, is it not?
Mr Pierre Vimont: It is.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Rather like Lady Billingham, I find it difficult to imagine what a conversation would be like with whoever Mr Lavrov deputed, where you say, “Now, we want to talk about the death of Mr Magnitsky”. What are they going to say to you? I would be amazed if they wanted to or were prepared to discuss that, because they have done nothing at all about his death.
Mr Pierre Vimont: Precisely. They are usually very unhappy, and you have seen how they reacted, for instance, towards the position taken by the US Congress and US Administration, but this is part of our relationship with Russia. We know about this. It should not prevent us from stating our point of view when we need to. We have other ways and channels, also, such as doing it through the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, and so on and so forth. We have the possibility to use different instruments, but I think it is about coming back to what was said by Gunnar a few minutes ago about this new Russian legislation on NGOs. We were very forceful in stating our position because we thought that it was not acceptable, but all the European member states with an embassy in Moscow had a direct interest with their own NGOs. They came in also on this one and made very strong démarches and remarks to the Russian authority. It was a gathering of forces on an issue like that.
Q160 The Chairman: You mentioned a moment ago about a division of labour. In that context, could you express a view as to the importance of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights in helping to promote this cause in Russia?
Mr Pierre Vimont: I do not know what else I could say, other than that they are playing their full part and that they can sometimes be a useful way of pushing some of these cases.
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: It is of course binding law. They are bound by these conventions and they face many cases in Strasbourg. Russia has by far the largest caseload in terms of human rights violations of any member of the Council of Europe.
The Chairman: Would it be possible, do you think, to produce any chapter and verse about the impact that the Convention on Human Rights has had in terms of promoting human rights in Russia, or is it too difficult to document?
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: I think the constitution and the laws are reflecting this, and they know that they are bound by those. The judgments are also followed up. However, the practice of the implementation of the laws is the problem.
Mr Pierre Vimont: But it is a very important instrument for all members of the Council.
Q161 The Chairman: Can I change the subject and ask a different question? You were an ambassador for France, and that country, generally speaking, knows what it is trying to achieve—
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: You mean unlike other countries?
The Chairman: More so in my experience than some other countries. However, in the case of the European Union, not all 28 member states are pointing in the same direction. In the particular circumstances that we are talking about, there are countries such as Hungary—not only Hungary—that have a rather different view than others. The Russians, I understand, have been quite active in trying to promote dissension in some of the south-eastern members of the European Union. Obviously that makes your life more difficult, but does it make it much more difficult or is this something that you can live with reasonably well?
Mr Pierre Vimont: I would say that the whole issue of Ukraine and our relations with Russia was certainly an issue whereby the position of the different member states could be rather diverse—no doubt about it. What was striking during all our debates that we had, and at whatever level we had them—the European Council, the Foreign Affairs Council, COREPER or the PSC—was that there was a sense of a clear need for unity, and that was always overcoming everything else. All member states stated that from the beginning, which is why, if you look, for instance, at the whole issue of sanctions—whether individual sanctions, or the decision to suspend political dialogue or summits—the situation is all the more complicated on the difficult issue of economic sanctions, we have always managed to get and retain unity, and to go ahead. You were referring here and there to some statements made by some of the leaders of the member states. What was quite interesting was that at the end of the day, they were all coming back to a common position. So far—touch wood—we have managed to do that.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Is there not a Hungarian view, though, that is slightly different?
Mr Pierre Vimont: I do not know, and you should ask them. What I detect and recognise is that around the table, at the time we needed to get a unanimous decision, we got it every time—maybe with some reservations from a few member states. However, at the end of the day, they have voted in favour—it is about voting for or against—and they have all voted for, even with some reservations, but they thought that unity had to prevail above some of their reservations. This was quite interesting and something that I have never found perhaps to the same level on other issues. It was very important, and it is an interesting testimony to the importance of the crisis we were facing, and the fact that all member states did recognise that above anything else it was important to show unity.
The Chairman: We have the imposition of sanctions, but then there comes the point where there is the renewal. Of course, the circumstances when that comes up may be different. It may be very difficult to carry through a renewal in March or whenever it is that they come up.
Mr Pierre Vimont: You will have a first renewal, mostly related to individual sanctions, in March, and the renewal of economic sanctions will come later on in July. We will see; it is very difficult to say. One has to remember that the decision to adopt the first set of economic sanctions came just after the shooting down of the Malaysian airline and, as you can imagine, emotion was high. This explained, to a large extent, why the 28 decided to move along. The second set of economic sanctions came just after there was an upsurge in Russian troops inside eastern Ukraine, which also brought a lot of emotion among member states. So in both cases, there were some dramatic events taking place in eastern Ukraine that brought all the member states together on the same line. Where will we be in March or July of next year? A lot depends on Mr Putin, I guess, and maybe on other events, but we will have to see. It may be somewhat difficult at this stage to foresee exactly how things will unfold.
Q162 The Chairman: Could I put a rather crude question, because I cannot think of a way in which to frame it more delicately?
Baroness Billingham: I am all ears.
The Chairman: One could argue that Mr Putin’s primary concern is to ensure that the group of countries—Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the rest—do not become too involved with Europe, that he puts up a shutter to ensure that they do not progress towards membership, that they look more towards Russia than the EU. Another interpretation might be that, having begun with Crimea, he is now looking towards a more expansive policy and safeguarding the position of Russian minorities, encroaching on the Baltics and altogether raising more Cold War-type issues. Would you incline to one view or the other?
Mr Pierre Vimont: It is difficult to give a clear and definite analysis on this. Going back to what I was saying previously, if one looks at the way events have been unfolding since February this year—the Maidan revolution and what happened either in Crimea or in eastern Ukraine—one has difficulty in detecting anything that looks like a clear strategy along the lines of what you were referring to. There is certainly on the part of the Russian Government a willingness to keep some close links with Ukraine, but this is something that the European Union can understand and it has never been disregarded by us. We have even said that there was no incompatibility between the DCFTA that we were pushing forward and the kind of trade agreement that Ukraine could have with Russia—
Mr Gunnar Wiegand: Has with Russia.
Mr Pierre Vimont: Has, sorry. Those could work together. They may need to make some arrangements here and there, but this is possible. Therefore, we have never been of the opinion that our association agreement was a decision about being on one side or the other. The question of enlargement that you ask is quite different. Even among the member states, it is a question on which they do not have exactly the same position, and I guess that will be the case for some time, as you know. It seems to me quite difficult to be able to give a clear assessment of what Russia is really thinking about.
Q163 The Chairman: I think that it was Churchill who said that Russia was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, or words to that effect. But not only is Russia rather enigmatic but Ukraine is quite enigmatic as well. This is my own last question; my colleagues may have another one. Do you feel that the Ukrainian Government are concerned equally with the east of Ukraine on the one hand and Crimea on the other, or do you feel that, looking forward, the Ukrainians may be willing to do a deal with the Russians that involves the east, of which, in a sense, Crimea is part?
Mr Pierre Vimont: Based on our discussions and dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities, I think that they are quite adamant both on Crimea and on eastern Ukraine. They are quite ready to discuss openly with democratically elected leaders from eastern Ukraine—because that is the problem at the moment—the kind of decentralisation or autonomy that they might be willing to give to eastern Ukraine, to the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, admitting that all this would take place inside the framework of the Ukrainian state. That is what is really important. They do not want to go towards something that would start jeopardising the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. On this, they are adamant. That goes not only for eastern Ukraine but for Crimea. They may be quite aware of the need to be realistic that the end of the annexation of Crimea may take some time, but I think they will stick to this position of principle and not move away from that.
Q164 Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Do you think there is any possibility that, in order to build up trust between the European Union and Russia, we might focus a little more on the issues which are not causes of anger and discontent and could be seen as productive? I am thinking of things like cultural co-operation, educational co-operation, scientific research and maybe other global issues. If you think there is something in that, could we provide some kind of a forum that enabled these matters to be discussed and publicised so that we could reduce the tensions?
Mr Pierre Vimont: Yes, I think we can and should. We all agree on that. We still have at the moment, in the short term, the problem of creating or recreating the kind of trust—you used precisely that word—and confidence that is indispensable if you want to be able to launch new initiatives in the field of education or research. This is why it is so important to see whether the agreements that have been reached so far between President Poroshenko and President Putin—namely, the Minsk protocol and subsequent memorandum, which means genuine implementation of the ceasefire, a genuine system of border control, humanitarian assistance being able to flow in and the withdrawal of military equipment and foreign troops and so on—are really implemented. Day after day, we are watching this very carefully, because we would all be happy if we were able to move ahead towards a more positive mood. It is very difficult to do that as long as we see that even the agreements that have been reached are not being implemented properly. Fighting is still going on around Donetsk airport and there are every day more people being killed in the field. Many member states are telling us at the moment that they do not have the impression that the situation is ripe for moving to a new stage of co-operation. At the end of the day, it is about building confidence again between the EU and Russia.
The Chairman: I am receiving signals that we have another witness and then we have a train. Mr Vimont, thank you very much indeed and thank you for the frankness and the comprehensiveness with which you answered. I think that I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say that we are most grateful to you.
Mr Pierre Vimont: I hope that it was useful, my Lord.