RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN WAR AND EU’S EASTERN POLICY

Messenger.ge
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Polish political analyst Marek Chikhotsky thinks that if there is
another war in Georgia the EU will conduct itself as it did last
year. Chikhotsky suggests that certain aspects of the EU’s eastern
policy have changed since Russian-Georgian war. The rhetoric of many
Western political analysts changed radically at that time, as they
began to be more critical of Russia and said that a new Western policy
towards Russia needed to be elaborated. The new Eastern Partnership
Programme is welcome, Chikhotsky says, because it envisages the
facilitation of close relations with six post-Soviet countries,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which
were under the Russian influence for a long time.

Chikhotsky thinks that the war in the Caucasus created criticism of
Kremlin energy policy in the region. The world has started searching
for alternative routes to counter the Russian monopoly on natural gas
supply. This has resulted in the development of the NABUCCO project,
which has now been agreed after being much speculated about before
August 2008.

The analyst thinks that Russia’s war with Georgia has not weakened
Russia’s position in dealing with the West. Russian-German Cooperation
has increased, the USA supports intensive dialogue with Moscow, a
new stage of Russian-NATO relations is being discussed, but the war
in Georgia showed that Moscow will use military force in the region
without hesitation to protect its interests, including Eastern Europe,
which is more important to EU than the South Caucasus. This gives a
very important hint to Poland what challenges lie ahead in eastern
policy.

Chikhotsky says the conflict in the Caucasus should be a lesson for
Poland. Before the war Georgia could boast about US support but during
the conflict itself Tbilisi did not receive adequate support. He
suggests that in crisis situations, either political or economic,
European countries look for a solution outside the EU by asking the
USA to help. This diminishes the EU’s role.