Back in 2001 when I had been Ambassador in Belgrade for only a few weeks not long after the fall of Milosevic, I was asked to give oral evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

Here it is. It reads pretty well now as a summary of the manifold issues at the time, even if I was too optimistic about the results of the energy and purpose being projected by the new Serbian leadership.

My analysis on managing the Montenegro independence issue ("convincing process, convincing result") was spot-on. And I think that I got the Kosovo issue right too:

Fundamentally it does not matter whether you call Kosovo "independent", a "confederation" a "Hong Kong variation" or a "pineapple", the point is that either there is a strategic attempt by Serbians, Albanians, and to a degree Macedonians, to agree that this has to be sorted out nicely, peaceably and to some degree with European support, or there is not. 

And this:

If you were the Albanians in Kosovo and were asked "would you like to have a Greater Kosovo everything else being equal?" you would probably say yes. Is it something they think they are ever going to get, it is hard to say …

There has always been an issue down there as to whether or not we are talking Greater Kosovo or Greater Albania. These groups exist and we know they exist. It is one thing even if they exist pursuing these objectives politically, it is another thing using what you might call ethnic cleansing and murder to accomplish them …

If people want to talk about a Greater Kosovo or a Greater Serbia or a Greater anything, let them talk, the main thing is they should not fight about it and try to use revolutionary violence … to accomplish their objectives.

Giving evidence to a House of Commons Committee is not easy, insofar as there is no way to practise before the event. British MPs ask tough, blunt questions. But my contribution won some praise in the Committee’s eventual Report.

I did rather better than the then Europe Minister Keith Vaz, who was roundly told off by the Committee:

We find it deeply regrettable that Mr Vaz, the FCO minister responsible for south-east Europe, has not visited the area … His evidence session with us did not reveal a detailed grasp of the policy issues which the area faces. As the Minister told us, and we know ourselves, the situation in the Balkans is "very complex and very difficult"…

It has to be said that the Committee had a point.

Mr Vaz’s eloquent but somewhat insubstantial replies to their many questions were a truly fine example of talking a lot and saying  … nothing.