Nine o'Clock,
The Web Edition
Viewpoint
A partnership for confrontation
published in issue 4418 page 4 at 2009-04-28
by Adrian Severin
Three EU Member States—Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic—have initiated a so-called “Eastern partnership” in view of strengthening the Union’s relations with its eastern neighbours. The partnership explicitly includes six countries: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
What these countries have in common is that they all used to be Soviet republics and are Russia’s neighbours, precisely to the same extent that they are the European Union’s neighbours. Moscow refers to them as the “immediate neighbourhood” which is part of its exclusive sphere of influence. Its status is central to the configuration of Russia’s post-Soviet global status.
Obviously, the EU cannot accept such exclusivity claims. It cannot abandon its eastern neighbourhood or have it become some sort of Russian protectorate. Nor can it have this region into a buffer zone whose insecurity, according to Moscow’s traditional logic, guarantees the security of neighbouring powers. This is why a European strategy is called for.
In relation to the European Union’s eastern neighbours, Russia’s strength is its past. This has generated cultural, family, commercial and economic ties that are hard to dismantle. Thanks to the Soviet totalitarianism, the Tsarist oppression has grown into a myth of grandeur, and Russia is no longer the USSR, but the Soviet state whose secession dealt the final blow to the communist empire.
In relation to Russia’s western neighbours, the European Union’s strength is the future. A future that promises a better, free and dignifying life. The EU is perceived not only as a factor of individual and social security, but also of national and international security. This is important to those who seek independence, including those of Slavic descent. Unfortunately, while Russia cannot offer an attractive model of economic and democratic development, the EU offers initiatives but not strategies, a process but not a product, a screen upon which any of them can project their expectations, but not a political-diplomatic plan suitable for implementation. It provides assistance, but no guarantees.
In order to be part of the Eastern Partnership, Belarus should change its political regime. But President Lukashenko shows no sign of making major concessions; their strategic relation with Russia obliges them (not to change). So the only option left is for the EU to lower its standards. Similarly, in order to take in the Republic of Moldova, the EU will have to accept the humiliation of one of its Members (Romania) and the discrimination of European citizens of Romanian origin by the Moldovan authorities; in other words, to give up its internal cohesion.
Ukraine, a country seeking to sign a treaty on economic integration, political association and institutional convergence with the EU, and for which the Eastern Partnership has nothing to provide beside what is already on the negotiating table, can only fear that from now on it would have to share with others the resources once promised to Ukraine alone.
In the Southern Caucasus, the soundest state, Azerbaijan, refuses any regional cooperation until its territorial dispute with neighbouring Armenia is resolved. But the EU is not ready to support the Azeri position (choosing instead to leave the Karabakh into the hands of the helpless Minsk Group). Armenia accepts the Eastern Partnership exclusively as a staunch ally of Russia (its only efficient supporter in a hostile environment). This only leaves us with pro-American president Shakashvili’s Georgia, which is still engage in an open clash with Russia, and whose authoritarian leadership is challenged in the street, not without Moscow’s support.
An interesting thing is that he initiators of the Eastern Partnership are states with Euro-sceptical leaders, who would not ratify (or have barely ratified) the EU Reform Treaty (the Lisbon Treaty). In other words, they promote conservative-nationalist policies, which, as we see, engage the Union in a dangerous clash with Russia. Because when the EU and Russia, instead of trying to agree on a common policy for their common neighbourhood, stake exclusivity rights on the respective neighbourhood, this turns from an area for cooperation into one of confrontation. But the EU lacks the means to wage such a war with Russia. Therefore, the confrontational adventure of the European right must be stopped!
by Adrian Severin
http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?page=detalii&categorie=politics&id=20090427-510630
