Last year our far from dovish House
of Commons Defence Select Committee published a 54 page report on 31 July
entitled: Towards the next Defence and Security Review: Part Two-NATO. (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmdfence/358/358.pdf)
In the section headed the UK
and NATO's capacity to respond: The conventional military threat,
in discussing the
conventional vulnerabilities of the ‘Baltic theatre’, the report notes: “Our witnesses
consistently emphasised that there was a low likelihood of a Russian
conventional attack on a Baltic State.
Yet
on 20 February in a longer 120 page report from peers, The EU
and Russia: before and beyond the crisis in Ukraine (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldeucom/115/11502.htm),
it asserts in a section on Rights of
Ethnic Russians and Russian Speakers that “ All three Baltic countries are state parties to the
Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National
Minorities (adopted in 1994). The Framework sets out a number of principles
according to which signatory States are to protect the rights of minorities.”
And concludes in paragraph 123 “The historical grievance of the rights of ethnic Russians in Estonia and
Latvia offers the Russian government a convenient pretext which could be used
to justify further destabilising actions in those states. On the basis of the
evidence we have taken, there does, prima facie, seem to be a question
to be investigated, in particular whether more steps could be taken to
facilitate access to citizenship for ethnic Russians who have long-established
residency in these states, but limited ability in the official language.
So which set of expert evidence to Parliament on the
potential vulnerabilities of the Baltic States should we believe?
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