In addition to being a member of the Defence Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), I also chair the Causeway Institute, a small non-governmental body in Northern Ireland, which is involved in peace building in the region.
I welcome the opportunity to have this debate and support the broad thrust of the Government’s approach on these issues. In Ukraine and in eastern Europe generally, it is important that we stand alongside our friends and that we recognise what Russia is trying to do. We are talking about not just Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but what Russia has been doing for some time in places such as Transnistria, Moldova, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia. There is a deliberate strategy to foment conflict and then for those conflicts to be frozen in a way that creates instability and gives the Russians influence in those regions.
The role of Poland is important. I was there just last weekend, and heard how concerned it is about what is happening in Ukraine. It is vital that we stand alongside countries such as Poland and the Baltic states. We need to reassure them that we will not countenance any situation in which they may face attack or incursion on to their territory.
We have mentioned the role of the European Union, but I have heard nothing about the role of the Council of Europe, which embraces most of eastern Europe and
has a role to play in opening up dialogue on the long-term issues. Russia is a member of it. I wish to hear more about the Council of Europe—our place in it and its role in the difficulties that exist in eastern Europe—because it is tasked with the responsibility of promoting human rights and respect for the rule of law, and building democracy, and those are precisely the kind of issues that are at stake in relation to the situation in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.