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Evidence Session No. 12 Heard in Public Questions 138 - 149
Members present
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
Lord Balfe
Baroness Coussins
Lord Dubs
Lord Horam
Earl of Oxford and Asquith
Lord Risby
Lord Stirrup
Baroness Suttie
Lord Triesman
Lord Tugendhat (Chairman)
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Examination of Witnesses
Professor Adam Fagan, Professor of European Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, and Dr James Ker-Lindsay, Senior Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Research Associate, Centre of International Studies, University of Oxford
Q138 The Chairman: Professor Fagan, Dr Ker-Lindsay, thank you very much for appearing before us. I am sure you know, but for the sake of good order, let me repeat that this is a formal session of the Committee and is part of our inquiry into the emerging European security strategy, so what you say will be taken down and used in our evidence. If, on reflection, there is anything you would like to excise from the record or make confidential, please say so. If, when we have finished, you would like to elaborate on anything that you have said, we are very open to receiving further written evidence. You have been sent a number of questions, but I am sure that my colleagues will deviate from those as well.
One other thing I need to say is that our next session at 11 am is from Washington, where somebody is kindly getting up at 6 am to speak to us by videolink. Therefore, we have to start the session with him absolutely promptly. I ask that you, and my colleagues, be kind enough to bear that in mind.
Finally, I have been informed that on the question relating to the western Balkans, Professor Fagan alone will answer, and on the question relating to Turkey, it will be Dr Ker-Lindsay. Otherwise, on all the other questions, please both answer, but if you agree with what the other person said, do not feel the need to elaborate.
I will ask the first question. A number of our witnesses have said that the new EU foreign policy strategy should take a very forthright approach to prioritisation. In your view, what are the principal security interests of the EU and Member States? What should the EU’s and Member States’ priorities be in the eastern neighbourhood?
Professor Adam Fagan: Thank you. In my opinion, the most important thing for the EU to emphasise and deal with are attitudes towards the EU, both in neighbourhood countries and the western Balkans. There is plenty of evidence that I have been involved in gathering, as part of our project, to show that on the ground in the western Balkans there is a surprisingly high degree of support for European integration and membership. But it is declining, and there is a real danger that that will disappear. It would be interesting to hear what James has to say about this as well, but I think that the big issue now is Russia. The EU has to have far more honed strategies to counter some of the negative attitudes towards the EU that Russia supports and funds. That is a very urgent problem at this time.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: There is obviously a huge question as to how the European Union operates in the western Balkans in particular. It is very clear that this is an area that cannot be ignored by the European Union. We should be thinking of this as a question of completion of the European Union rather than enlargement. That is an important point to stress: that the European map is not complete without bringing in the western Balkans.
We will talk a little more about the geopolitics, which Adam has just brought up, but we also have to bear in mind that making sure that these countries are functioning will help us to deal with a whole range of security issues that we are facing at the moment. The migration crisis is a very clear example of where we need to have the co-operation of western Balkan countries, and indeed all of south-east Europe, including Greece and Turkey, in order to manage these flows. We see here the tip of an iceberg; when you look at the situation in the region, you realise that these are the countries on the front line and they have to manage it. They do not have the resources to do this, and it will create all sorts of tension and turmoil if this is not addressed.
There are all sorts of other legacies from the conflicts of the 1990s that have not been fully dealt with yet. We have to bear in mind, for example, religious radicalism in the region. This has been highlighted as a potential problem. A number of fighters from Kosovo and from Bosnia have gone off to join the forces of ISIS in Syria. There are also trafficking issues: drugs trafficking, arms trafficking and people trafficking. These are still prevalent in the region, and we cannot manage any of these without a clear policy perspective for the western Balkans to make sure that all interested parties are co-operating effectively with us in order to manage these security threats.
Professor Adam Fagan: I would just like to add, if I may, that it is worth saying from the outset that there has been a process of lesson-learning. The EU strategies for the western Balkans are significantly improved, having built on the knowledge of previous enlargements. Also, the focus on justice and the rule of law is paramount. It is very easy to become rather critical and adopt an approach based on stagnation. The real change is the focus on evidence. The EU is absolutely aware of the importance of communication with elites in the western Balkans and giving them an opportunity to continually reflect on their progress through working groups, partnerships and structured dialogue.
I did not want to give the impression in my initial comments that there is malaise or stagnation. A lot of improvements are being seen. The challenge is to make sure that these are embedded and wheeled out across different policy areas.
Q139 Lord Risby: Thank you. One of the things that have struck us in our discussions so far is the impact of Germany in many areas of the life of the European Union, not just internally but in foreign policy. Could you comment on whether, and to what extent, that influence impacts on neighbourhood policy?
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: Without a shadow of a doubt, Germany is now the key actor in the European Union when it comes to dealing with enlargement issues. It is very telling that, five or 10 years ago, Britain would have played that role; we were front and centre of efforts to promote enlargement. That has fallen by the wayside now, and there are two very clear reasons for that: the internal policy debates in this country, and immigration and freedom of movement, which we know have been conflated into one question and concern for the electorate. We have seen the concern that if we take in the western Balkans, more people will come in and we cannot take it. Sadly, that concern has been allowed to take off, and it is doing a lot of damage, I think. The numbers that we are talking about are very small. If we take in all six countries of the western Balkans, it will be 17 million people. We took in 30 million with Bulgaria and Romania alone. We have passed the threshold at which it is going to matter. I think this is very dangerous. I bring this up because it has meant that we have fallen by the wayside.
Interestingly, France is nowhere to be seen. I spoke to a German colleague the other day and one thing we noticed is that there is no debate on the Balkans in France these days. There is no input into policy-making at a European level by French think tanks or academics—they are almost absent. We have created a vacuum which Germany has moved into, very effectively, and is taking the lead on this. Angela Merkel developed the Berlin Process, which has set up a new dialogue between the European Union and key EU members with the countries of the western Balkans. What is particularly telling about this is that it was set up by Germany and Austria. They have now brought in France, interestingly, even though it seems to have gone relatively quiet, and Italy, but Britain is not there. It is a very big question in my mind why we have not got involved in such an obviously beneficial process to set up a dialogue with the western Balkans.
My final point on this is that, within the region as well, there is a growing sense of the alienation between Britain and the European Union. These are countries that do not have a lot of diplomatic resources, so they are going to focus them on the European Union countries that they believe are most likely to deliver the result of seeing them join the European Union. They look at the estrangement and they think, “If we are going to start using our resources, it would be much better to send our diplomats and officials to talk to Berlin—win Berlin over, and Vienna will follow”. These are the real targets. There are a number of reasons, but part of the reason why we have seen Germany take this role is because the UK has moved away from it.
Professor Adam Fagan: I want to answer the question slightly differently. I agree with everything that James has said, but the easiest way for me to answer it is from the perspective of Bosnia. The Anglo-German initiative has, I think, been one of the most successful initiatives in recent years. It was much criticised, and there has been an awful lot of negative analysis, but as time goes on we are seeing that Germany working with the UK unlocked the stalemate on Bosnia’s progress in moving forward with the enlargement process. From within Bosnia, the view of Germany’s and the UK’s role is very telling. It broke the stalemate but was also warmly welcomed by the Bosnians, who felt that it broke through the blandness of an EU strategy that was seen as being very much bureaucratic and on which no progress was being made on reporting. There was a real appetite for this level of two big powers within the EU deciding that they needed to take control and give some sort of direction. It was difficult at first; there was obviously a certain amount of cynicism about whether this, the latest in a string of initiatives, would work. But 12 months or so on from that initiative, Bosnia looks as though it is ready to apply for membership. There has not been a huge change, but the emphasis on the economy and growth, which Germany and the UK, working together, led, has, I think, made a difference.
There is a lot of discussion about the role of Germany, but in the case of Bosnia it was Germany working with the UK. We must not lose sight of these sorts of examples. Rather than emphasise too much the role of Germany as a lone actor in the EU, the case study of Bosnia is very compelling and interesting.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: It is important to differentiate between the grand political position taken by Britain and those taken, for example, by the Foreign Office on the ground. The point that Adam has raised is very important. Bosnia is a very good, if rare, example. However, there are a few others. I would like to note, for example, the role of the British ambassador, Charles Garrett, in Skopje, in Macedonia. There are very deep political problems in that country. That is an example of where Britain, working with other European partners, has been able to step in. Sadly, if we look at the big picture, countries are definitely now beating a path to Germany’s door rather than the UK’s.
The Chairman: We come to the third question, which is from Lord Stirrup.
Q140 Lord Stirrup: Europe’s eastern neighbourhood has been identified as a key security challenge to the EU with what has been called the return of geopolitics. As Professor Fagan noted, Russia is increasingly seen as a security threat. Has this changed security environment fostered a shared political vision among Member States in the region or has it accentuated divisions between them? Is Russia a unifying factor or a dividing factor?
Professor Adam Fagan: That is a very difficult question to answer. The easiest way to approach it is to focus on what the EU needs to do to counter the influence of Russia. The big issue is communication. The EU has failed to wade in to win citizens of these countries, particularly Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova—the countries that, notwithstanding the current situation in Ukraine, are the front-runners in the neighbourhood. There has been an absolute failure to focus on citizens and the benefits of Europe. Russia emphasises LGBT issues and the idea that Europe is anti-Christian, anti-Orthodox and a challenge to indigenous values. The EU has to respond to that and not by diluting its own core values, but it also has to focus on driving home the benefits to citizens of potential EU membership.
I use the word “membership” specifically and deliberately. The time has come to consider whether this group of countries can be taken as a group and whether the Commission should still be treating them as neighbourhood countries. Membership comes with all sorts of connotations and brings with it a very different focus. But we know from the case not just of central and eastern Europe but the Balkans that the golden carrot of membership is what really drives change. We have come to a point where that is worth discussing.
I have certainly not come across any evidence that individual Member States, whether it be France, Germany or the UK, are pushing a different line from the EU. At the moment, the EU seems to be channelling a common set of policies, but the time has come to reconsider the whole term “neighbourhood”, to think about communication and work on the ground, and to rise to the challenge of Russia’s involvement and the funding that it provides for various campaigns that are very critical of the EU’s influence. The EU must do an awful lot more to promote the benefits of closer engagement with the EU.
It is also time to use the regatta principle and inject a degree of competition among these countries, saying that if they make progress here, that will propel them forward to a different kind of relationship with the EU. It is really surprising that the very successful tool that was used throughout the 1990s in central and eastern Europe is not being used in this region.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: The question of Russia’s role in the region is obviously very complicated. It is important to stress that it is quite clear that Russia sees opportunities for mischief-making as things stand. But it is also very important to realise that the situation on the ground is often much more complicated and less clear-cut than is presented externally. I will give you an example of a discussion I had last year with a senior Serbian policymaker about Russia’s business involvement. This person was particularly scathing, saying, “We had to take Russia in, because we needed Moscow’s support on Kosovo. We gave them a strategic stake in energy companies. They have appointed all these directors, who are taking massive salaries, and we do not know who these people are”. Basically, he accused Russia of thievery; nothing more, nothing less. He said that they realised that the better investments are the investments that come from the European Union: it is the Fiat car factory that creates wealth on the ground, not Russian oligarchs buying into energy companies, appointing their mates as directors and then walking off with €20,000 or €30,000 a month in salary. This is the sort of thing that people there realise.
It is very complicated. There is a cultural affinity, if you like, but most senior policymakers are very well aware that the real path to prosperity lies with the European Union. You can see this reflected in public opinion. A very interesting poll was published last year asking: do you think Serbia should move closer to Russia or to the EU? If I recall rightly, 54% said that it should move closer to the European Union and 52% said that it should move closer to Russia—quite why it does not add up, I do not know. What was more telling was that when they were asked where they would like their children to live, 70% said the European Union and 17% said Russia. That is really very telling. There is a sense that a certain political kinship might exist but that the real future for the country lies with the European Union. Serbia is the hotspot, if you like.
The other concern that we should perhaps be paying attention to is Republika Srpska in Bosnia—although again we have to be very careful not to overstate it—and the Russian influence there. There has been a lot of talk about secession. We need to dampen down that talk, but there is no doubt that there is the possibility that Russia will see this as its best chance for mischief-making. However, we need to be cautious when we are talking about Serbia, which is the main actor in the region where Russia is exerting its influence.
Professor Adam Fagan: I would just like to add two things; I agree with most of what James is saying. One is an anecdotal point. When travelling in Bosnia—I spend quite a lot of time in the country—I am always struck by the pragmatism of people. Whatever their views on Russia or negative views of the EU, there is the pragmatic idea that Russia has nothing to offer—
The Chairman: Can I just press you on that? Obviously in historical terms it is a remarkable set of figures. Russia is Russia, but when they say “the EU”, they do not mean Spain or Ireland actually, they mean Germany. Is not that the case?
Professor Adam Fagan: I think they mean the potential access to the single market, and the ability, particularly among young people, to be able to do what the Croats, Bulgarians, Czechs and Slovaks are doing, which is to study, travel and work in the rest of Europe. Bosnians are very conscious of the fact that they are not able to do that at the moment.
The Chairman: But when we see these unfortunate people behind the wire in Hungary or somewhere else, wanting to get through, they are not shouting “the EU”; they are shouting “Germany”. That is why I am pressing you on this. Do they really mean the European Union, or do they mean Germany?
Professor Adam Fagan: What the people behind the barricades who have traversed the Mediterranean want is very different from what the people in candidate countries, or indeed in the neighbourhood, want. As to whether people in Bosnia, to whom we were referring, identify Germany as being precisely the place where they would like to work, live and study, I do not think it is entirely that at all. Many of them would also like to come to places across Europe, whether it be to study in Italian universities or to work in London or Paris. It is that very strong pragmatism among the young generation to be Europeans. They see the prosperity and are frustrated by the slow pace of progress, but they shrewdly recognise that Russia offers rhetoric but very little else.
The Chairman: We are running a bit behind schedule, but it is very interesting. Baroness Armstrong.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top: I actually think they have answered my question.
The Chairman: In that case, we will move on.
Lord Dubs: My question has been answered as well.
The Chairman: Perhaps we are running ahead of schedule.
Q141 Lord Triesman: Chairman, if we are running slightly ahead of time, may I ask a quick question? I was very interested in what was said about turning to Russia for input into businesses. Is any part of that because, when compared with Europe, the Russian Government, essentially through their own owned banks, reduce the costs of capital? Presumably China would reduce the cost of capital even further. Is this in part commercial judgments that would probably be made by anybody seeking investment?
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: In the example I gave of Russian strategic investment in a very key area of the Serbian economy, there is a realisation in Belgrade that they needed to do this in order to buy Russia’s support over Kosovo, which is a key issue. I remember when this happened. To hear Serbian decision-makers saying now, “We are lumbered with this agreement and we are not happy with it”, shows that we are still in a situation, when we talk about Serbia, where we have given Russian political leaders the opportunity to get involved because Serbia still needs Russia’s support over Kosovo. This issue has not been entirely dealt with. That means that there is room for leverage. To be frank, unwittingly we created another opportunity this summer involving the Srebrenica resolution at the United Nations. Serbia wanted the resolution vetoed and Russia provided that veto. You can bet that Russia will, somewhere along the way, make its demands as to how that is repaid. That is a very disturbing element, and we need to be very cautious about opening up these opportunities for involvement. The Serbian decision-makers, wherever possible, want to look to the European Union. We do not want to be creating circumstances where, inadvertently even, it is better to have to take political payback. Whether they make it cheaper I do not know, but they exact a price politically if not economically.
Professor Adam Fagan: I will make a very brief point. I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but from the perspective of Bosnia I think that the reference point for what they want for their economy is central and eastern Europe in the early 1990s and the flood of western European capital, businesses and investment—predominantly German—in Sarajevo. They know that that happened and that what kick-started the whole process of EU enlargement, and ultimately membership, was that flow of capital and investment. It was on the back of that that political, social and economic reform really gained a foothold. Young people, again, are very aware that that is what is different in their country. It may be very different in Banja Luka and Republika Srpska, but from my experience in the country, that is what they desire.
Q142 Lord Dubs: There is a bit of my original question that I would like to dwell on. You argue that enlargement is still a real issue for the western Balkans. I think that is a fair statement. Moving further east, if we take Ukraine, Moldova and so on, is enlargement still on the table there or should we take it off the table and look at other means? Are there other things that we can do to provide incentives for them to move westwards, such as a customs union and so on?
Professor Adam Fagan: It is important to say that enlargement has never been on the table. That is the point that I was trying to make in my earlier comment. There was an insinuation that if they behaved themselves as neighbours, they might be offered enlargement further down the line. That was probably prudent at the time, because at that point no former communist country had entered, but we are significantly further along now. There needs to be clear recognition that in countries such as Georgia there is a very high level of support for EU membership and enlargement. Obviously the pace of progress is patchy, but, as I said, the EU needs to move away from talking about these countries as neighbourhood countries and talk about them as potential candidates. We have the tried and tested tools of carrots and sticks, and certain criteria have to be met. I am not suggesting for one moment that we should change those criteria. On the other hand, the idea of neighbourhood as being second best is interpreted as precisely that: that it is not membership. From a Georgian perspective, the view is, “What more is there to be gained from us undertaking reforms? Where is the ceiling?” They are getting certain benefits, aid and assistance. Without the golden carrot of membership, where is the incentive? It is about putting enlargement on the table, not for all of these countries, but offering it.
One final point: there is a very pragmatic way of looking at this. Because the countries of the western Balkans are not making startling progress, notwithstanding the recent progress of Serbia, there is very little to be lost. Georgia, arguably, is not a million miles away from some countries that are candidates. There needs to be some innovative thinking about how we deal with countries that are currently in one category but have the potential to make more progress, and countries in a different category, such as Macedonia, that are really not making any progress. That is not lost on the Georgians. They are saying, “Why should be in division 2 when Bosnia or Kosovo is in division 1?”
Q143 Baroness Coussins: Thank you. What you have just said leads very neatly to my question. We have heard from a number of other witnesses about the southern neighbourhood. They have said that a revised neighbourhood policy should move away from the one-size-fits-all approach and differentiate more between the countries in that neighbourhood. It should look either at clustering them together in smaller groups, or even at taking a country-by-country, tailor-made approach. Would this be a useful model for the eastern neighbourhood as well? If so, how would you differentiate between countries and policies towards them?
Professor Adam Fagan: I absolutely agree that that is how the European Union should proceed. What amazes me is the progress that was made in dealing with the western Balkan states in terms of differentiation and being much more robust in specifying the priorities. For example, chapters 23 and 24 emphasise justice and rights. All that knowledge demystifies for these countries what they are expected to do and wades through the structured dialogue to say, “We’re going to help you and provide you with the evidence of where the shortcomings are”, as opposed to what happened five or 10 years ago, when an annual report was produced that recorded no progress. An awful lot of progress has been made in how the EU deals with the western Balkans, which could be ported to the southern and eastern neighbourhoods, saying, “We need differentiated strategies”. The EU has done that with some countries; it has exercised a high degree of pragmatism that is quite remarkable.
One of the criticisms that I and others made 15 years ago is that the EU is obsessed with one-size-fits-all and shows no pragmatism. The EU has really learnt that lesson and is much more pragmatic. It is much more focused, rather than taking a scattergun approach that says: you can open any chapter of the acquis but you have to open chapters 23 and 24, it must be evidence-based, there must be impact assessments, and there must be structured dialogue. All those tools are in the tool box and could be so easily applied in the neighbourhood. The problem at the moment is precisely what I said a moment or two ago: the neighbourhood framing is the stumbling block.
Q144 The Chairman: In southern Europe, there was no great bear in the background. In the area we are talking about, there is a great bear in the background, so to what extent should be we taking account of Russian interests, and how do you think the EU should react if Russia is hostile to the sort of things you are talking about?
Professor Adam Fagan: James might have something to say about the bear in the south. I think there is probably a bigger bear knocking around in the south in some respects. To deal with Russia, there is a very salient point about what the EU must do. The EU has been very timid; it has been treading very carefully, for obvious security and strategic reasons to do with not upsetting Russia. However, Russia has moved into a very different set of strategies and is funding and supporting an anti-EU movement. There is a political rhetoric that is chipping away at impressive support bases in these individual countries. The only thing that the EU can do is counter it and work through civil society to build alliances with pro-EU, pro-reform coalitions and get to citizens. It is not doing that at all. There is very little evidence in any of the eastern neighbourhood countries that that is taking place. That is the only way to counter the rhetoric that, “If we join the EU it will all be about drugs, homosexuality and debauchery”. Given the simplicity of the Russian message, it is quite surprising that there is not a much more robust response.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: Those are very good points about how Russia is approaching the matter. I think we have seen a fundamental transformation, from five or 10 years ago, in how Russia approaches the question of the European Union. At one point there was a clear Russian interest in keeping NATO out but there was, interestingly, also a clear Russian interest in getting these countries into the European Union. The European Union is a major trading bloc. You want allies sitting around a decision-making table, making sure that any agreements you reach are as favourable as possible to Moscow. For a long time we worked under the assumption that Russia was opposed to EU and NATO membership. It was not; it was just NATO. I think we have now seen a turning on that; they have become interlinked in Moscow’s mind and we are now starting to see much more aggressive Russian actions against the EU as well. I think Adam mentioned that. There is a cultural element to this. It appears that Russia is funding bodies in the countries of the western Balkans that are sending out the message that EU liberal values are out there to bring down the Orthodox Christian culture. That is a very powerful message in certain circles.
However, we have also seen it over the migration crisis, for example. It was very telling that the Russian ambassador in Belgrade said on television and in the media, “Look at all these people. They are making their way up into the European Union, but you watch: the EU will at some point close its borders and they will be left in Serbia. It will be your problem. Look at what the EU is doing—it will sell you out. It’s guaranteed”. This is starting to drip through and is a very real danger that we must confront. Russia is trying to poison attitudes in the region against the EU, where it sees opportunities. To my mind, that is a real concern.
Professor Adam Fagan: May I add two brief points about EU strategy and the instruments that it uses in the neighbourhood? Beyond better communication, the EU must allow these countries to exercise more authority when setting strategies and priorities. There is a tendency to infantilise these Governments and countries, and that is pernicious. The other thing is much more nuanced language, because pushing democracy does not work. It does not mobilise and galvanise citizens on the side of the EU in the way that it did in Czechoslovakia, Poland or Hungary in 1990. The research that we have conducted in Georgia and Ukraine suggests that it is good governance that citizens associate the EU with. The EU needs to play to that much more. Of course democracy is at the heart of what the EU wants from its prospective members and is core to its very foundation. However, on the ground in the neighbourhood, it means doing something about corruption and good governance. Russia plays on the myth of the so-called values of permissive democracy. The EU should be talking about governance.
The Chairman: Lord Horam, quite a lot of your question has been covered.
Q145 Lord Horam: Briefly, to come back to the instruments of the European Neighbourhood Policy, we are constantly told that it has quite a lot of resources behind it. You mentioned extensively how you want them used, but are those resources there, and are they being used at all effectively?
Professor Adam Fagan: They are there. I speak only from my experience of Georgia; I have spent time there but not in any of the other neighbourhood countries. There is certainly resource there, but I do not think it is always effectively deployed. There is a big problem with absorption capacity. The EU aid cannot be absorbed. There is an enormous time lag; they are still trying to implement projects that were awarded four, five or six years ago. The EU has strategies under its belt that it used in south-east Europe and central-eastern Europe to facilitate the absorption of the aid that it has earmarked and it could do more on that. One very good example is environmental regulation. Part of the problem is that the cost of compliance for companies is prohibitive. Therefore, the initiatives and funding for the partnership schemes trying to improve environmental governance cannot be allocated and are not effective because companies need support. There is a tendency to deploy funds rather narrowly without anticipating unintended consequences or unrealised effects. There is also a need to bring in the local voice and talk to pro-reform civil society organisations and allow them more autonomy in setting priorities for funding. There is an infantilisation, and that is where there has not been enough learning. There is still a tendency for Brussels to set priorities and say, “This must be funded and this is the focus of the funding”, without really valuing the voice of local pro-reform networks. Much more money needs to be directed to communication. At the moment, the funding for communication going to European movements needs to be a much larger-scale endeavour.
Q146 Lord Balfe: If we could turn to Turkey, which surely must be the biggest disaster in European policy. We have been negotiating with Turkey since Turgut Özal’s time. Some would argue that we have now lost any significant leverage and that the recent election does not advance us in that way. What should we do to get it back on track? Should we face the fact that Germany does not want another big country in the EU and/or use Cyprus and any other device to prolong the agony for Turkey, or should we try to get it back on track and be realistic and try to get Turkish accession going?
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: I have followed the European Union’s relationship with Turkey for 25 years now. Like many others, I was a long-time supporter of Turkish membership. I certainly have no truck with the idea—this existential debate—that Turkey is not like Europe. Europe is a heterogeneous continent; I did not have much time for the question of what makes Greeks like Latvians rather than Turks. Having said all that, I am now a staunch opponent of Turkish membership of the European Union. We cannot conceivably begin to think of Turkey joining the European Union under this current Government. Erdogan has taken Turkey in a completely different direction.
Lord Balfe: May I intervene? If the current Government had lost the election, would your views be different?
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: When you look at the political scene in Turkey, it is very difficult to see how you could have created a functioning coalition. I had not believed that Turkey had passed the point of no return. After this election, I really do worry that, five years from now, there might have been such a fundamental transformation of Turkish society that it will not be ready. I certainly do not think that we can seriously consider it—certainly not under this Government, looking at everything that has happened since May 2013 and the Gezi uprisings and the way the Government have responded. By any reasonable measure, we should not be talking about Turkish membership of the European Union. It should be off the table.
Having said that, I am acutely aware that we are left with a problem. Turkey is, technically, a candidate. It is a country that has strategic significance. Is this a country that we want to upset? We know that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a very unstable character. I have worked long enough in south-east Europe, and there is a principle that I often like to bring up called inat. To anyone from south-east Europe, that is well understood. It does not have a direct English translation but we can think of it as cutting your nose off to spite your face. It means that people will do things in order to make a political point; it is an honour point. This is the worry that exists in the European Union: if you push Erdogan too far, he could take a substantial step in order to get back at the European Union. I do not think that anyone wants that. We are left with the huge problem of what to do with Turkey. This is not a country that we can conceivably think of as being a member of the European Union.
Lord Balfe: But if they change their Government, we could.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: If they change their Government and roll back a lot of the illiberal measures that have been taken, potentially we could. But I think that we are moving further and further away. The culture of the country is becoming more and more embedded. That nice western liberal elite that had for so long controlled the country is fighting a rearguard action now.
Lord Balfe: It is called the military.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: No, it was far more than that. If you were to go Istanbul and speak to the business leaders and intellectuals, you would have seen that these were the people who very much had a full understanding of how the European Union worked. You would see them interact and know that, at that level, Turkey was a very European country. But now look at the way that it is acting. There was a case last week of two boys, aged 12 and 13, who are up on lèse-majesté charges for insulting the President because they tore down an electoral poster: children on trial for political dissent.
Lord Balfe: They are not on trial.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: Well they have—
Lord Balfe: I think we should call this a draw. We fundamentally disagree.
The Chairman: I am worried about time. Can I ask Lord Triesman to ask his question?
Q147 Lord Triesman: Professor Fagan, a number of people have advocated that EU action is now more easily conducted by small groups of states within the EU, rather than the EU as a whole, using the Commission instruments and external services. What is the potential for that in the western Balkans?
Professor Adam Fagan: I go back to the first point I made about the Anglo-German initiative in Bosnia. There were huge benefits in that. I disagree with the idea that this is a recent innovation. Go back to the enlargements of the 1980s and the agency of individual states or groups of countries; look at the 1990s and Germany’s support for particular countries of the former Yugoslavia, such as Croatia. It has always been so, and the potential is huge. That is partly because, from the perspective of candidates, following year after year of progress reports and bureaucratic engagement with the Commission, the injection of realpolitik to deal with the Government of a powerful state is often very welcome. It feels like the unblocking of a stalemate. Stalemate is the reality: even for countries that make good progress, it is very slow. That language of initiative and thinking differently to try to unlock the stalemate and inject a degree of pragmatism is to be welcomed.
We agree on most things, but I fundamentally disagree with James on Turkey. I would just like to say something on that.
The Chairman: We have one more question on the list, so please be brief.
Professor Adam Fagan: There has never been a more compelling time to keep EU membership for Turkey on the table. The problem with Turkey is not that its progress has stalled but unfortunately that there has been significant backsliding, particularly around the rule of law. That is no reason for giving up—I am not suggesting that that is what James was saying. The gauntlet must be thrown down. The EU is very good at doing this, at saying, “This is what we need you to do, so let us have a road map”. Maybe this sounds naive, and I do not have James’s experience on Turkey, but there is plenty of evidence, from much smaller countries such as Slovakia and elsewhere, to show that throwing down the gauntlet works. The EU must say what it is that Turkey needs to do in order to make some progress. Getting back on track could unlock all sorts of political change in Turkey. The liberal voices within Turkey need Europe more than ever as a normative benchmark for where things have degenerated so greatly.
The Chairman: This leads rather to the next question.
Q148 Earl of Oxford and Asquith: Yes it does. You have made very clear your views on the candidacy of Turkey for the EU. In recent months, the Heads of State of the EU have beaten their way to Ankara, as have the directorates and other parts of the European Commission. European Union instruments have been offering all sorts of things to Ankara. Would you agree that that is a consequence of a lack of strategic policy being formulated over recent years? Would you see the present refugee crisis as a trigger for creating the strategic policy that is needed, or would you see it on the contrary as diverting people’s attention from a strategic relationship with Turkey?
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: It is quite clear that we do not know how to deal with Turkey. Recently, what has been seen in more and more Commission statements is an emphasis on partnership with Turkey and less on the question of Turkish membership of the European Union. Then, out of the blue, we had this comment about how they were going to unlock four chapters with Turkey. I have looked at Turkey and the western Balkans for a long time. It makes a mockery of the EU process. We are now expecting the latest progress reports to be published. We do not quite know when that will be, but we are trying to take a hard line with the western Balkan countries. I completely agree with Adam; we have seen results in smaller countries, but Turkey is not a small country. It is a country that believes that it is the perfect equal of Germany when it comes to joining the European Union. It is not willing and ready to make the sorts of concessions that we need it to make in order to make sure that it can join the European Union. What are we going to do? Will we produce progress reports, year in, year out, to say to Macedonia, “You are not fulfilling media freedom rights, so we are going to rescind the recommendation to start accession talks with you”? That was the statement in last year’s progress report. Turkey is doing far worse, but for political reasons we are going to keep it going. That gets read by other countries. They see this double standard, and it undermines our ability to bring about change in the smaller countries, which I think we should be focusing on in the western Balkans.
We need to think seriously about what we do with Turkey. I do not see how EU accession is now going to bring about any fundamental reforms. Erdogan wants to say, “We are an EU candidate”, and keep it on the table for the meanwhile, because it serves his political purpose. But there is no way he is going to be willing to make the fundamental reforms that the EU wants to see him make. We have seen him go too far in the other direction. The real problem is that we are undermining the credibility of the process across the rest of the European Union by turning a blind eye to Turkey or suddenly saying that we are going to open up chapters when quite clearly the conditions in which to do so are not ready.
The Chairman: You may not agree, Professor Fagan.
Professor Adam Fagan: No, I do not agree. I think the strength of EU enlargement has always been precisely that degree of pragmatism and an ability to use politics and geopolitics to favour some countries at certain times and make decisions that veer from a rational notion that somehow countries can only enter when they have met all sorts of conditions. I will point to Bulgaria and Romania. Of course, there were difficulties; there was a need to intervene after accession to ensure that there was implementation. But those decisions were taken for compelling reasons. We start from the premise that countries, including Turkey, would be better in the EU. If that is our guiding principle, we must do everything not to lose sight of that and to use the mechanisms and strategies that are in place. Of course it is not going to happen in a short time. I am not suggesting that. The opening of four or five chapters is significant, because for those in Turkey who have lost enthusiasm for EU accession, it is precisely because chapters are not being opened and closed. If the EU picks the chapters very carefully, in consultation with Ankara, it could make a huge difference to instigating a liberal reform agenda where that has almost disappeared.
Q149 The Chairman: Can I ask you one question, which will have to be the last? Do you think that the European Union has the appetite any more to take on the problems of a new member, whether it is a smaller country, let alone a larger one? There is a big difference between a large and a small country. It is one thing for Mr Orban to kick over the traces in Hungary and another for Mr Erdogan to do it in a country that is however many times larger. Very briefly, because we have to set up a videolink with America, do you think that the European Union is in practice capable of or open to enlargement?
Professor Adam Fagan: I will answer very briefly. Had you asked me that question six months ago, I would have said probably not. In the light of what has happened over the summer, I would say yes. Angela Merkel’s activities in Ankara are indicative of that. That does not mean that there is no recognition of the huge costs involved, but it has brought the importance of taking EU membership for Turkey seriously back into the mainstream debate.
Dr James Ker-Lindsay: It is very telling that Angela Merkel is on record very recently as saying that she does not believe in Turkish membership. This is just straight-out politics. It is giving Turkey a little of what it wanted going into the elections. There is no intention to take in Turkey. To put it facetiously perhaps, if Turkey were not a candidate, would we be having a conversation about whether we would be opening candidacy talks with the country? Not a hope. Why do we not extend that to Russia or to Libya? If we believe that the better thing is that we can bring about fundamental reform by bringing them closer to the European Union, why do we not open the gates and let everyone in? That is a very troubling approach to take at the moment. But we do have a set of countries for which there is a vital argument to speed up the process and work closely with them: that is the western Balkans. What we do beyond that is troublesome, and we need to make a break between candidacy for the western Balkans and candidacy for Turkey. Turkey is a very different problem that we are going to have to learn to confront in very different ways.
The Chairman: I am advised that we really must finish. Thank you both very much. It was interesting to hear where there was discordance between you.