A "EUROLIFE" FOR THE EAST?
by Lubos Palata
Transitions Online
nguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=299&N rSection=2&NrArticle=20250
Dec 10 2008
Czech Republic
The EU offers a new deal to the countries on its eastern frontier,
and an implicit challenge to Russia.
PRAGUE, YEREVAN, BAKU | You can’t help but notice it. Whenever people
in the post-Soviet region want to emphasize a product’s quality,
craftsmanship, reliability or luxuriousness they affix it with
the prefix "euro." A newly reconstructed flat where everything is
in good working order is said to have gone through a "euroremont"
(read: a European-style redesign). A decent product is graced with
the epithet "eurostandard." And when a politician wants to let it
be known that he really does want to change things for the better,
he describes his efforts as a "euroreform."
In the eyes of Eastern Europeans, the European Union is a standard
measure for quality – the quality of products, of democracy, of
housing, of lifestyles. Not America or Japan, but Europe. Millions of
Ukrainians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Belarusians dream of one day
living as people do in the EU. Those who can afford it actually act
on those dreams. Cities like Berlin, Vienna, Karlovy Vary and Nice
are full of rich Eastern Europeans who have used the millions they
made in the east to move west and live the "eurolife."
It is entirely normal to find EU flags fluttering in front of
government buildings in Chisinau, Tbilisi or Kiev. Only in Minsk,
where Belarus’ authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka holds
court, is there a lack of EU flags, but even here the arrival of the
EU standard may only be a matter of time.
The EU flag already hangs alongside the Moldovan standard at municipal
meetings in Chisinau. Photo: Chisinau.md
DOES POST-SOVIET EUROPE BELONG IN EUROPE?
The problem is that the EU doesn’t want Eastern Europe. It is
already having a hard time digesting the 12 new member-states –
including 10 from the post-communist regions of East-Central Europe
and the Balkans – that were added to the union in recent years. This
difficulty is evident in the rejection of the European constitution
and the difficulties surrounding the Lisbon agreement.
The EU is not ready, in either a logistical or a strategic sense,
for the unavoidable integration of the rest of the post-communist
Balkans. Despite the fact that Turkey has had an association agreement
with the EU for four decades, Turkish membership has been put on the
back burner – to say nothing of other interested countries like Morocco
or Israel. In the current situation, with the EU experiencing major
internal tension as it searches for a functional decision-making model
in the aftermath of its "big bang" enlargement into the post-communist
region, there can be no serious talk of another expansion drive
further eastward.
Nevertheless, it is evident to most serious observers that the EU
cannot completely overlook the region to its east, a fact that became
all the more clear after France pushed through its (admittedly very
vague) "Mediterranean project" earlier this year. A major catalyst
for the EU’s realization of the importance of its eastern frontier was
the Russian invasion of Georgia and the resulting de facto annexation
by Moscow of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. "We managed to stand up to Russia," Alain Lamassoure,
the chief foreign policy adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy, told
me recently of France’s stance. The Georgian situation apparently
convinced Sarkozy, whose country has the EU presidency until the end
of this year, of the necessity of bringing this eastern region closer
to the EU.
The EU can pull this off through an agreement with Russia or, if there
is no other way, against Russian wishes. The EU’s massive post-war
material support for Georgia, amounting to hundreds of millions
of euros, was linked to an array of agreements, such as a proposal
for fast-tracking pacts on free trade zones. More importantly, this
support represented a turning point in the stance of the 27-member
union toward the East.
The idea of an Eastern Partnership actually predates the Georgian
situation. Poland and Sweden, supported by all the new post-communist
member states, pushed for it as a counterweight to the Mediterranean
union. But it was only after the invasion of Georgia, which led to at
least a temporary cooling of relations with Russia, that the eastern
project received any real support in Western Europe. Previously
the Western European powers (with the notable exception of Britain)
always viewed relations with Russia as more important than relations
with other post-Soviet states.
After Georgia, there was a significant shift. At the fall EU-Ukraine
summit, Kiev was offered an association agreement of a qualitatively
higher level than the proposed strategic partnership that has been
the subject of renewed negotiations with Russia since November. The
next logical step would be for the Eastern Partnership project to be
fully launched, which would take place during the first half of 2009
when the Czech Republic holds the rotating EU presidency.
ASSOCIATION WITHOUT MEMBERSHIP
In a prelude to Czech involvement, the European Commission officially
launched the project on 3 December in Brussels. Six post-Soviet states
are involved: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus and
Moldova. A special communiqué issued by the commission stated that
the EU has an increasing level of responsibility for its partners,
that it wants to help them deal with the political and economic
challenges they face, and that it wants to support them in their
efforts to secure closer ties with the EU. Benita Ferrero-Waldner,
the European commissioner for external relations, said recently that
the time has come for opening a new chapter in the EU’s relations
with its eastern neighbors. The situation in Eastern Europe and the
southern Caucasus has an impact on the security and stability of the
EU, she said, and the EU’s policies toward countries in those regions
should be active and clear.
At the same time, Brussels accompanied the announcement of this
project with offers of association agreements, which it aims to
sign with each of those countries provided certain conditions are
met. The association agreements would be preceded by the creation of
zones of free trade between the EU and the countries of the Eastern
Partnership, which would not only open up the common European market
to those countries’ products but but would fully open those eastern
markets to European exports.
Association agreements are generally the first step toward full union
membership. Such agreements were signed by all the post-communist
states that, more than a decade later, became EU members. But the EU
is not offering this promise of membership to the countries of the
Eastern Partnership.
Some countries, such as Ukraine or Georgia, would like to hear such
a promise; others, such as Armenia or Azerbaijan, are not looking for
one, at least for the time being. "There are many other directions in
which we can go," a high-ranking Azerbaijani diplomat said recently
in Baku. I heard similar words in neighboring Armenia this past
September. "Everybody is trying to be a player here: Russia, Turkey,
Iran, the European Union. We have always tried to be in between and
to have our own, Armenian interests," Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister
Arman Kirakosyan told me.
All the countries of the Eastern Partnership face huge problems. Four
of the six are in a state of war or semi-war. Moldova has no control
over the so-called republic of Transdniester on its territory, Georgia
is in a similar situation vis-a-vis Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
and Azerbaijan does not control the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh
or an extensive area around it, which is occupied by neighboring
Armenia (or, as Yerevan would have it, by the separatist Republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh).
The level of democracy varies from the stability of Moldova, through
the relative chaos of Ukraine and the problematic Armenia and Georgia,
all the way to the authoritarian calm of Azerbaijan and Belarus. "There
are worse kinds of governments than that of an enlightened monarch,"
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said with respect to the
Azerbaijani version of "democracy."
Out of this group of countries, only Azerbaijan can be described as an
economic success story. Belarus and Ukraine have displayed a certain
economic stability, and liberal reforms have brought visible progress
in Georgia. But Armenia and, especially, Moldova belong to the most
economically devastated parts of the former Soviet Union. The current
financial crisis and its accompanying effects on the global economy
could have a terrible effect on all of these countries, including
Azerbaijan, which has been successful because of its oil and natural
gas industries.
RUSSIA’S SPITEFUL STANCE
For the Czech Republic, the official inauguration of the project with a
summit in Prague this spring will be – along with the EU-America summit
to be attended by new U.S. President Barack Obama – a high point of the
country’s six-month EU presidency. But the main battle is not yet won,
despite official support for the project from the European Commission
and despite a deal with French President Nicholas Sarkozy that saw him
agree to back the Eastern Partnership in exchange for being permitted
to continue serving as the head of the Mediterranean union. There is
ongoing disagreement over the most essential element: financing.
Russia sees the Eastern Partnership as another project aimed
at competing with its influence in the post-Soviet bloc, and it is
pushing back in response. Germany, whose foreign policy is spearheaded
by the extraordinarily Russia-friendly Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, has indicated that it will not agree with tripling aid
to the Eastern Partnership countries by 350 million euros in 2010-1013.
Germany partially shares Russian fears that were recently expressed
in an article in the Moscow daily Kommersant: "Moscow, which has
to a significant degree been the object of the EU’s eastern policy
(especially under the EU presidencies of Germany and France), will
be thrown overboard under the Czech EU presidency in favor of an EU
external policy aimed at the East."
The Czech presidency (which will be followed by a Swedish presidency
with the same outlook) will face a tough fight in this area because
the Eastern Partnership truly represents a significant shift in the
EU’s line on Russia. It will mean standing up to Russia in Eastern
Europe. Or at least offering itself beside Russia as an alternative
for the post-Soviet countries – a choice between life according to a
"Russian standard" or a "eurostandard."
Lubos Palata is the Central and Eastern European editor for the Czech
daily Lidove noviny and a contributor to the Polish daily Gazeta
Wyborcza and the German monthly German Times.
–Boundary_(ID_tPaxWumgehD1XeYv2Ffevg)–