Viscount ST. DAVIDSMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to join in the international aid needed to assist in the plan to canalise and connect the rivers Vardar and Morava and thus give Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania a direct water route from the Danube to the Aegean Sea.
§ Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOEMy Lords, Britain's aid programme is directed towards the less developed countries and does not therefore extend to Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania. However, the Governments of Greece and Yugoslavia and the United Nations Development Programme, to which the United Kingdom is a major contributor, propose to finance a pre-feasibility study of the project.
Viscount ST. DAVIDSMy Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, which is helpful so far as it goes, may I ask whether she would agree that this project, although enormously expensive, would do an amazing amount of good to the map of Europe by providing, for cargo purposes, a new route for the whole of the Upper Danube nations, in fact giving the Danube two mouths, one of them on the Aegean, thus not only liberalising the economies of the Upper Danube countries but helping them somewhat in liberalising their politics, which would also help our friends in Greece and Yugoslavia?
§ Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOEMy Lords, the House in general will realise that the flow of trade 416 has changed lately and is very much more in the direction of the Middle East; this project, if it came off, would of course be very helpful in that direction. It is rather a delicious idea that the Danube should open near Thessaloniki—I like to think of that—but I must warn the noble Viscount that it would be a major and very expensive operation.