European External Action Service

I was going to say more about the budget a little later in my speech. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear with me if I try to make some progress. I shall respond later to the points that she was making about the budget, and if she wants to intervene again I shall try to make time for her to do so. In response to what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, I want to give a couple of examples to illustrate that it is possible for the new institutional arrangements to complement an active British foreign policy. The first example concerns political stability in the western Balkans, which is incomplete and fragile. The Government strongly believe that it is in the United Kingdom's interests to have political stability, human rights and the rule of law entrenched in that part of our continent, but that is not a goal that the UK can secure on its own. It is not an exaggeration to say that the situation in the western Balkans is a litmus test of any EU aspiration to take on an effective diplomatic role. We hope that the EAS will make the Balkans one of its highest priorities and that the new institutional arrangements will make it possible to pursue our common objectives with greater cohesion and consistency than was possible before. My second example is the threat to maritime trade and the safety of voyagers posed by pirates operating off the coast of Somalia. Already, the different arms of the EU are beginning to work more effectively together: security is a member state and Council responsibility, but development falls to the Commission. The new arrangements maintain the focus on poverty alleviation, but better co-ordination within the single framework of the EAS makes it possible to get development money spent on building new prisons in Kenya to incarcerate pirates, which helps us to achieve our shared security objectives. If the EAS works effectively, the bringing together of the Commission and Council arms of EU external policy under the aegis of the High Representative, instead of their remaining in separate institutions as now, ought to make it possible to achieve a more joined-up policy in tackling other challenges, such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. The EAS is not going to be some kind of elixir to cure all diplomatic ills and we have to be realistic about what it can achieve. It will be able to act only where there is a common position, as the High Representative can advocate a foreign policy position only on the basis of a unanimous mandate from the Foreign Ministers of member states. As the example of Iraq, which my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) cited, illustrates, there are no institutional solutions to problems that, at root, require both political will and consistent, shared views. The High Representative has made a very good start to her challenging role. She has an impossible job—almost three jobs, in fact: High Representative, British Commissioner in Brussels and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council. She has been criticised for not being at two different ministerial meetings that were held in two different countries at the same time, but that seems more than a little unfair. I am told that she has 400 days of appointments in the year, and she does not yet really have a proper department to help her. The Conservatives wished her well when she embarked on her task and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I are already working closely with her.