House of Lords represented at inter-parliamentary conference on CFSP and CSDP
18 November 2014
On 6 and 7 November, Lord Bowness, former Chairman of the EU External Affairs Sub-Committee, and current Member of the EU Sub-Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy, represented the House of Lords at the Inter-Parliamentary Conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy.
The conference was hosted under the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU. It brought together parliamentarians from national parliaments of Member States and candidate states, and a wide array of keynote speakers. A summary of the conference, the conference's conclusions and videos of the debates are available on the website of the Italian Parliament.
Topics
The conference held debates on a number of themes, including the Mediterranean and the crises at the borders of the European Union; prospects for European defence; strengthening EU-Africa relations; EU battlegroups; regional stability and enlargement to the Western Balkans; and Libya.
Keynote speakers included the new High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni.
Speaking in the debate on the Mediterranean and the crisis in the EU neighbourhood, Lord Bowness drew attention to the current crisis in Ukraine and to the need for the European Council to provide political leadership on energy security.
During the session on the stability of the Western Balkans, Lord Bowness said that there was an onus on EU Member States to promote the benefits of enlargement, in order to convince citizens in candidate countries of the possible benefits of reforms in their countries. He also commented on Serbia's future as an EU candidate country, the need for a lasting settlement with Kosovo, and an agreed policy between all member and candidate states on the South Stream pipeline.