Europe’s new divisions
The Economist, UK
Nov 24 2004
Nov 24th 2004
>>From The Economist Global Agenda
Russia and the European Union will spend much of the next few years
sparring over the countries that lie between them~Wand much else
besides.
LEADERS from the European Union and Russia will come together for a
summit in The Hague on Thursday November 25th. Originally scheduled
for two weeks earlier, the meeting was postponed because the new
European Commission had not yet been approved. Those taking part this
week could be forgiven for wishing that it had taken place as planned
on November 11th, for relations between Brussels and Moscow,
difficult in recent months, have been strained still further by
Ukraine~Rs disputed presidential election. Russia~Rs president,
Vladimir Putin, was quick to congratulate the ~Swinner~T, Viktor
Yanukovich, who favours close ties with Moscow. The EU, in contrast,
has expressed concern that widespread fraud may have robbed the
pro-western challenger, Viktor Yushchenko, of the presidency (see
article).
The EU-Russia summit is supposed to forge closer ties on the basis of
four ~Scommon spaces~T: economics, justice and humanitarian issues,
education and research, and internal and external security. As the
spat over Ukraine shows, the last of these issues is the thorniest.
What the EU calls its ~Scommon neighbourhood~T with Russia, and what
Russia has dubbed its ~Snear abroad~T~WUkraine, Belarus and Moldova;
and, further east, the Caucasian republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia~Whas become the cause of an almighty, unneighbourly row.
This is not the first time the EU and Russia have clashed over this
region. After Alexander Lukashenka ~Swon~T a recent election in
Belarus, and a referendum allowing him to stay on as president,
Moscow congratulated the dictator, while Brussels cried foul and
tightened its sanctions against his regime. But Ukraine is the key
battleground for influence between the EU and Russia. Bigger than
France, and with a population of almost 50m, it has long borders with
both the newly expanded Union and its former Soviet older brother.
That is why the war of words over Ukraine is being seen by some as
the biggest bust-up between the West and Russia since the Kosovo
conflict in 1999~Wperhaps even since the end of the cold war.
Russia has backed the eastward-looking Mr Yanukovich because it fears
losing Ukraine as a key ally, having already lost it as a Soviet
sibling. As Lilia Shevtsova, a Russia analyst, put it in an interview
with the Financial Times: ~SRussia still feels a phantom pain for the
loss of Ukraine~Elike a patient whose leg has been amputated.~T Moscow,
it seems, has had enough of watching its sphere of influence shrivel
since the Soviet Union~Rs collapse in 1991. One by one, its former
satellites have joined the NATO alliance, and earlier this year a
batch of them~Wincluding three former Soviet republics~Wjoined the EU.
Others, such as Romania and Bulgaria, will follow them before long.
The Union~Rs new members have toughened visa requirements for Russian
visitors and closed their borders to some Russian goods. All this has
made Russia feel vulnerable~Wand thus more prone to flex its muscles
in neighbouring countries.
Though Moscow worries about western influence in Ukraine, the
country~Rs chances of being invited to join the EU any time soon are
poor. The Union is keen to promote human rights and democracy there
(as well as in Belarus), but its Ukraine policy is muddled. This
reflects an internal split that has become more pronounced since the
former eastern-block countries joined in May.
The biggest of the new members, Poland, has long had close ties to
Ukraine (indeed, western Ukraine was briefly part of Poland after
being part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and some of it did not
rejoin Ukraine until 1945). The Poles have been lobbying hard for
Ukraine (and later Belarus) to be given a special relationship that
would lead eventually to EU membership. The longer the Union holds
out on these countries, the Poles say, the greater the chance they
will be lost for good.
But those EU countries that are geographically far removed from
Ukraine worry more about maintaining bilateral ties with Russia.
Moreover, they would rather focus on countries that are already lined
up for membership: not only the likes of Romania and Bulgaria but
also, further along, Turkey. They argue that the EU simply could not
absorb another big, poor country over the next decade or so. Hence,
despite all that Polish lobbying, there is no consensus on offering
Ukraine a date to start entry negotiations. Nor is there agreement on
starting talks with Georgia, whose ~Srose revolution~T of a year ago
installed a pro-western government, under Mikhail Saakashvili, that
would dearly love to be offered the chance to join the Brussels-based
club.
Those other battles
The fight over Ukraine comes at a time when relations between the EU
and Russia are already plumbing post-Soviet depths. It is true that
the two have forged strong economic ties: just over half of Russia~Rs
exports go to the enlarged Union, which in turn is heavily dependent
on Russian oil and gas. But, on a political level, trust has been
eroding. Brussels is worried that, as a European Commission policy
paper put it earlier this year, some Russian practices ~Srun counter
to universal and European values~T. It has problems with Russian
democracy, or rather the lack of it (the most recent parliamentary
and presidential elections were riddled with irregularities) and
worries that political reforms announced in the wake of the Beslan
siege represent a step back towards dictatorship. The new, central
European members of the EU are calling for a hard line against
Moscow: they want to see their former master challenged and
contained.
Russia, for its part, complains about being left out in the cold. It
resents not being informed about EU positions~Won everything from
immigration to drug trafficking~Wuntil it is too late to influence
them, and wants new joint bodies that will give it a seat at the
table. It also wants Europe~Rs governments to be more sensitive to
Russia~Rs internal concerns: Russian officials fumed when the Dutch
foreign minister accused the authorities of botching the rescue
operation in Beslan. And there is anger that some in the EU portray
Russia~Rs interest in countries to its west, such as Ukraine, as
dangerous. Russian commentators have taken to talking about
~SRussophobia~T in Brussels.
The result is that Russia is once again driving hard bargains. It is
less interested in friendship than in commercial and diplomatic
gains. Thus, it brought smiles to faces in Brussels by ratifying the
Kyoto treaty on climate change recently, but it did so only after
securing EU backing for Russian membership of the World Trade
Organisation and a host of other economic goodies. Were Russia~Rs grip
on Ukraine now to be loosened by the EU, among others, it might only
be encouraged to fight its corner more vigorously in future, in both
politics and economics. Expect tetchiness all round in The Hague.