Minister Doughty Speech at the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly Plenary - 17 November

Stephen Doughty, Minister of State for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories, outlines how the UK is strengthening relationships with the EU and Europe to deliver on security and defence priorities.

"Well thank you very much, Chair, and it's a great pleasure to follow my good friend Pedro and see so many friends around the room from both the UK and the European Parliament, but also devolved assemblies and parliaments as well. And coming from Wales in the United Kingdom, and representing a constituency there, it is particularly important that this assembly is able to bring together all those voices, and I know that it does so very, very powerfully.

I wanted to thank you for the warm welcome. I know you've just heard from my colleague, Nick Thomas-Symonds, some of us see us as a bit of a double act – we're both from Wales, we look very, very similar, although I've grown a beard recently to distinguish myself. We're regularly on panels and events together, and hopefully what we will say will come together as sweetly as Welsh singing, that you'll know we take great pride of in our country.

But, joking aside, the reason why Nick and I keep turning up together at different events, and attending different consultations and assemblies such as this, but also speaking together publicly, is that we are united by a clear purpose – which is enhancing relations with our colleagues across Europe, as part of the reset that the government pursued since our election last year. And I'm glad to report that I feel that is going extremely well.

We have had a very, very successful year across multiple fronts, and I really do want to commend both our colleagues in the parliament who have supported that, but also of course the team in the Commission, and my colleagues across different government departments. Because this is a team effort to try and take a new course in the relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union in a new era, and one which is defined by many of the geopolitical and economic challenges, and social challenges, that Pedro set out.

I wanted to reflect on three key themes in my remarks today: firstly, the importance of rebuilding trust; secondly strengthening our security; and thirdly, tackling other shared challenges. Each of them is essential if we are to going to deliver for our citizens.

I wanted to start with the first of rebuilding trust and co-operation. Because I think one of the real hallmarks of our work in the past year has been rebuilding those personal relationships and getting back around tables together. Whether than was my own experience of attending the EU informal foreign ministers meeting just a few weeks ago, in Denmark, at the Gymnich, and sitting alongside David and others, and sitting around the table as a trusted friend and partner, tackling some of the challenges that our continent faces. Whether it's the engagement that we've had on a whole series of issues, particularly notably our work under the Security and Defence Partnership which I will come onto, really crucially important work on Ukraine, on hybrid threats, on the Western Balkans, on the Indo-Pacific.

It is also in the nature of the individual relationships we've built – whether it's with senior officials in the EEAS, or in the Commission, or indeed in the Parliament, and the way that we are using those relationships to take forward our shared objectives. And as the Prime Minister said at the EU Summit in London, “This reset is about building a pragmatic, ambitious partnership with Europe - one that delivers security, prosperity and trust for our people.”

And of course, we have coupled that with building relationships with individual member states as well – I've been on extensive travels across the continent, rebuilding partnerships, and just in recent weeks have been to discuss shared challenges at EU and bilateral level with Spain, with Greece, with Romania – that's just in the last three weeks.

Pedro mentioned the fantastic work we've done to achieve a political agreement on Gibraltar, which was down to incredibly hard work on both the UK and EU, and Spanish and Gibraltar teams, and I think it sets a new course with huge benefits. And it's also been the unseen stuff, the stuff that doesn't get all the attention in the headlines every week, but that new spirit of cooperation between our officials and between our excellent civil services, in finding solutions on key challenges that we face, particularly in the security and defence space.

And I think on that, I wanted to come onto our second pillar, which is strengthening our practical cooperation on security and defence. And I would first begin by saying, and you would expect me to say this, but of course NATO remains the cornerstone of the UK's defence partnerships, and our partnerships with the EU make an important and parallel contribution to that, and in some cases overlapping contribution.

I see European security as made of many, many different pillars: our relationship between the UK and the EU, our NATO partnerships, the work of groupings such as the JEF, and our work in other organisations such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE. And these things need not stand in contradiction to each other – they should stand in complement to each other, and I have certainly seen that reflected across the last year.

I am very, very proud of our commitments to European security and defence in the United Kingdom, particularly through NATO – and indeed, many members of my family members served in those operations over many decades, whether in the British Army of the Rhine in Germany, or in the Balkan conflicts. So this is something that is very deep and personal to me. And I am proud to say that the UK will continue working with our Allies to deter aggression and promote stability.

Just a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of welcoming the Royal Navy's Carrier Strike Group in Crete, with our Minister for the Armed Forces Al Carns, as they returned to European waters. And of course, there are other important engagements taking place this week with regards to the security of the Mediterranean and beyond. The Strike Group's work with European partners is a clear signal of our commitment to a safer, more secure region. And of course, to top all of that off has been our Security and Defence Partnership.

You've heard from Nick on that – but let me really stress that we are working to make that Partnership a reality. Four key pillars, as I've said: hybrid cooperation, the threats to our very democracies, how our work can intersect with the work that the EU is doing on democracy shields, the work that we are doing to deter Russian and indeed other hostile state interference in our democracies, in our societies, to tackle sabotage, cyber attacks, the activities of foreign intelligence services – many, many different issues that we face. And of course, disinformation and division-creating in our societies and politics. Crucially, that work to support Ukraine and deter Russian aggression.

Thirdly, to ensure we have a strong dialogue in understanding our relationships in the Indo-Pacific, and crucially on the Western Balkans – an area where we still see some significant challenges but also huge opportunities and potential for peace and stability and economic progress.

It was a real privilege to be with EU counterparts around the table as we hosted the Western Balkans Summit – some of the key meetings, the Foreign Ministers' meeting at Hillsborough in Northern Ireland, and also the Leaders' Summit which we held at Lancaster House just a few weeks ago. So those for me are very, very tangible examples of UK-EU cooperation on foreign policy.

Last month, I had the pleasure of joining Pedro and indeed the Foreign and Defence Secretaries for the first Foreign and Security Policy Dialogues with the High Representative, Kaja Kallas, and I think that shows again just how serious we are taking this. And I can tell you those discussions and what come out of them are incredibly fruitful – we share many, many similar views and visions, and many, many similar ways in which we can align our work going forward.

Of course, nowhere is our cooperation more vital than in responding to Russia's illegal, barbaric invasion of Ukraine. Together, the UK and EU have imposed some of the toughest sanctions, and it was welcome that the US recently joined us in recent action against Russia's largest oil firms. And over the summer, our decision with the rest of the G7 to lower the oil price cap further cut Putin's revenues and ability to wage that war.

Of course, sanctions alone are not enough. We are working closely with the Commission, EU partners and the G7 to unlock frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine's war effort, including vital air defences. Pedro mentioned our work through the Coalition of the Willing, which has been so important. And it is very, very clear to me that it is not just about the support that we offer directly to Ukraine – militarily, financially, diplomatically and in humanitarian or in important support to their energy infrastructure over this winter in the face of barbaric bombardment – but also about how we choke off the Russian war machine.

We all have a responsibility on that in Europe, to understand whether we are doing enough, particularly in the spheres of energy and other areas, to prevent them getting that resource which is killing civilians, destroying cities, and devastating Ukraine. We all have a responsibility to work on that closely together.

Of course, supporting Ukraine and ensuring European security means strengthening our own defence capabilities. European allies need to step up fast to boost our defence industrial capacity across the board. We are leading the way here, investing in new defence partnerships with EU member states, including France and Germany, and many others, but also outside – with Norway, with Turkey and others.

These, and future collaborations with Poland, with Turkey and others show our determination to build a safer Europe together. So, we welcome efforts and we welcome the intent from the Commission, from the EU, to step up to enhance the EU's defence production.

But we've got to make sure that this helps us work together with other countries and doesn't break up defence industry and capabilities at a crucial time. We've built that carefully together – and especially now, Europe needs to stay united and send a strong signal that we are united both in our capacities and our intent to defend our continent, and I very much hope that the ongoing negotiations on UK participation in SAFE that Pedro referred to can reach a successful conclusion. We're making progress, and I am confident we can reach an agreement that strengthens our collective defence and supports Ukraine.

Of course, security goes much broader than defence. There are many topics I could touch on, but I would particularly highlight the work that we are doing to tackle serious and organised crime, and also illegal and irregular migration - for which ordinary people in our countries are paying the price.

Not only do our public services feel the strain, but vulnerable people are being exploited by criminals, by cruel smuggling gangs. And as the Prime Minister put it over the summer - we cannot solve a challenge like this by acting alone. It requires joint solutions, and that's very much been a part of my engagements and visits at all levels with European partners over recent weeks and months, to understand from each other how we can work together on those issues.

So we particularly welcome the Commission's announcement that they intend to develop new dedicated sanctions powers, as we have done, in a world first, to target people traffickers and those fuelling this vile trade in human misery across our continent. And it is clear to me that given the chains, given the networks, given the huge routes that these people do this through, that we have to be cooperating with European partners to achieve delivery on that as we tackle irregular migration together but also the serious and organised crime that underpins it, and that blights our communities in so many other ways.

Of course, there are many, many other areas I could go into, many other parts of the continent and indeed the world – whether that's on North African security, whether that's on the prospects for peace in the Caucasus, in Armenia and Azerbaijan, whether it's our work together in the High North, whether it's our work ensuring the security of our communities in the Eastern Neighbourhood more broadly – we have very many challenges out there, but we have very many opportunities too together. And I'm confident that we have built a strong foundation over the past year.

It's been testament to both the governments involved and the executives involved, but also to the tireless work of parliamentarians. I took part in many of these different assemblies and groupings in the past, and have had the pleasure of spending time in and around the European Parliament, around our devolved parliaments and assemblies, and of course here, as a Member for 13 years, and I know it's in the partnerships in this room that we build new solutions, new ideas, and new solidarity to tackling the threats that we face.

Thank you very much for having me today, and enjoy the debate and discussion."