Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Jun 1993

Vol. 433 No. 2

Written Answers. - Conference on Stability in Europe.

John Bruton

Ceist:

38 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs the views, if any, he has on the proposals of the French Prime Minister Balladur for a conference of European States to establish norms for dealing across all of Europe with frontier disputes, minority problems, and collective security; and his views on whether ethnic minorities within States should have collective rights enforceable by some form of European agreement of legal code.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Spring)

The Government has noted with great interest the proposal by Prime Minister Balladur for a Conference on Stability in Europe. Although we have not yet had an opportunity to consider the proposal in detail, our preliminary assessment is that it could provide a valuable contribution to the development of collective European security arrangements and help to ensure that tragic situations, such as the present one in the former Yugoslavia, do not recur in the future.

The Government shares the view which underlies the Balladur proposal that the settlement of frontier disputes and agreement on the protection of minority rights in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are essential for the promotion of stability in the region. We also believe that security in Europe concerns all European states and that we have a shared responsibility to contribute to the enhancement of peace and stability in our continent.

The Government is committed to the development of co-operative security arrangements for Europe which will satisfy the security needs of all European states. To this end, we have sought to develop the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe as a pan-European security forum based on the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter. In this context, we welcome the fact that the Balladur proposal aims to build on the achievements of the CSCE in the security field and to strengthen the role of the CSCE.

Prime Minister Balladur presented his proposal to the European Council in Copenhagen on 21-22 June 1993. The European Council agreed that recent events in Europe have shown that action towards assuring in practice the implementation of the principles agreed by European countries with regard to respect for borders and rights of minorities is timely and appropriate. The European Council invited the General Affairs Council to examine the proposal and report to its next meeting in December 1993 with a view to convening a preparatory conference on the pact.

As regards the more general question of protection for ethnic minorities, this has become an urgent issue as a result of the re-emergence, in the states of Central and Eastern Europe, of traditional disputes between different ethnic groups which had been suppressed under the former communist regimes in those countries. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, in response to these developments, recently instructed its appropriate group of legal experts to examine this question with a view to proposing specific legal standards relating to the protection of minorities. The group of experts is currently engaged both in formulating a possible list of minority rights and in considering by what means those rights might best be protected. The work is still at an early stage. Ireland is following the matter closely.