Eastern Partnership: Eurointegration or Drive East?
en.fondsk.ru
Ð?rbis Terrarum
24.03.2009
Viktor BEGER
The joint Summit of the EU and the six CIS countries invited to the
Eastern Partnership will convene on May 7, 2009. No other EU program
started to materialize as promptly ` the Eastern Partnership has been
proposed by Poland and Sweden on May 26, 2008, that is, less than a
year ago.
Around the Project
On various occasions Ukrainian politicians said that Ukraine would be
the locomotive of the program, get a chance to become the regional
leader, and make efforts to benefit maximally from the EU policies in
the financial sense. Speaking at a diplomatic rout on January 27
President Yushchenko said: `In 2009 we will finally sign the
association agreement to which we have been going for such a long
time. We are oriented towards practical results. This pertains, first
of all, to `the four freedoms’ – the unrestricted transit for people,
products, money, and services’. The range of freedoms is available to
the EU countries. Or, rather, they should have been available to all
of them – for example, Germany and Austria are going to remove
restrictions on workforce migration from the 12 EU novices only in
2011.
As for the transit of products, money, and services, the energy market
is a vivid example of the current situation. When the EU countries
decided to introduce a common energy market in 2006, it transpired
that the energy sector was overly regulated in 17 of its member
countries.
Quite a few problems with Belarus are yet to be resolved to put the
program fully on track, though the principal position of the EU is
that the Eastern Partnership must be of equal and non-discriminatory
character for all of its members.
Commenting on the positive effect of the Eurointegration since the
2000, Moldovan President V. Voronin asked: `What is the point of
creating an alternative CIS under the EU control? It looks like a
circle around Russia’. The question was asked in February. Early this
March the answer ic of Moldova K. Mizsei, and the idea was quite
intriguing ` he opined that the Eastern Partnership would be not a EU
project by a joint project of the EU and the CIS countries.
When the Eastern Partnership was discussed by the foreign ministers of
the EU countries on March 16, the EU openness was given priority over
the democracy and human rights problems in some of the countries
invited, as otherwise they would be likely to get drawn into the orbit
of influence of other centers of force. In particular, Brussels
decided to suspend the sanctions imposed on Mensk. Estonian foreign
minister U. Paet said the EU had to give the Belorussian people a
chance, or otherwise the pressure from Russia would be growing. His
Finnish colleague A. Stubb remarked that for 12 years the EU had been
relying on the sanctions policy, and it became clear that the road led
nowhere, while the recently introduced greater openness resulted in
changes in Belarus, though not to the desired extent.
Attention should be paid to the fact that the EU Rule of Law
initiative is being implemented in the framework of the European
Neighborhood Policy since May, 2007 in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Eurasian Competitiveness
Program for Central Asia was also launched in 2009 in the framework of
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ‘ OECD (18
of the 30 members of the organization are EU and 26 – NATO
countries). The objective of the program is to promote the economic
development and political stability in the countries of Central Asia.
Europeanization has spread far beyond the confines of Europe. From the
standpoint of its membership the Eastern Partnership is identical to
what is termed the security vacuum in the US.
The security vacuum as interpreted by the Heritage Foundation
encompasses Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Moldavia, the countries
which do not associate their future with Russia, whereas NATO and the
EU keep their doors shut. In January, 2009 the Heritage Foundation exp
e EU were unable to do anything specifically for the security of
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Moldavia. The situation is described
as the security vacuum. On the one hand, the countries do not want to
join the organizations led by Russia, on the other ` they are denied
integration into other blocs (F. Starr).
Since the Eurointegration of the countries invited to the Eastern
Partnership is closely related to the Euro-Atlantic integration, the
claim made by former Czech President V. Havel that upon NATO’s being
joined by Ukraine and Belarus its border would be identical to that
between Russia and the two countries can be seen in a new
light. Essentially, Havel deepened the idea concerning Russia once
expressed by Czech Foreign Minister K. Schwarzenberg – that in certain
cases a red line should be drawn past which the EU should make no
concessions.
It is highly indicative that the Ukraine ` NATO 2009 Plan which
combines skillfully the European and Euro-Atlantic integration in no
way mentions Ukraine’s involvement in the Eastern Partnership.
The arrangements preceding the creation of the Eastern Partnership
reveal another important aspect of the matter ` all the programs are
tightly inter-related, but `the level of the political interaction’
and the results of `the energy security efforts’ are likely not to
measure up to the EU expectations related to Europe’s `eastern and
southern drive’ (the US Department of State has a remarkable ability
to invent names for geopolitical offensives) unless the energy-rich
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan participate.
The Meaning of the Eastern Partnership for Ukraine
The Eastern Partnership is planned as an informal alliance having no
permanent administration, with two summits to be held annually. Its
members are offered the opportunity to move on towards the EU
independently so that the process would not be impeded by the
differences in their individual development levels. The key spheres of
the cooperation are democracy, good governance and sta n with the EU,
the energy security, and the contacts between citizens on the
individual level. Brussels reiterates that the EU is not going to act
as a donor regardless of circumstances and that the economic
assistance to the Eastern partners will be contingent on their
compliance with their obligations, the rates of progress in individual
countries, and several dozen Eurointegration progress indicators, as
well as on the state of the cooperation in certain sectors of the
economy.
The relations between the EU and the partners will be regulated by
bilateral agreements. The loudest measures are the visa regime
liberalization and the prospects for visa-free travel in the long run,
the countries’ joining the energy cooperation treaty or signing
memorandums on energy security, the creation of free trade zones
jointly by the EU and the partners or ` even better ` among the
Eastern partners.
The intensity of the efforts aimed at formulating the Eastern
Partnership program was due to the urgency of the energy security
problems faced by the EU, the financial crisis, and the need to
integrate the revenues generated by the transfer of manufacturing to
non-EU countries rather than to the interest in advancing democracy,
the rule of law, and the respect for human rights. The program is
synchronized with the evolution of the US policy concerning the EU and
the post-Soviet Republics.
On January 12, 2009 the EU Council of Ministers for Transportation,
Communications, and Energy examined urgently the current state of the
European gas supply. On January 26 the EU Council of Ministers for
General Issues made specific decisions, planning to overhaul the whole
foreign strategy in the energy sphere.
The priorities set (and backed by a Euro 3/5 bn budget confirmed by
the European Parliament in March-April) included the Southern gas
corridor, the network of natural gas liquefaction terminals, the
linking of the Baltic region to the energy networks of West Europe,
the Mediterranean energy ring, the North-South energy axis (the in
c power networks of Central and South East Europe), and the offshore
energy network in the North Sea (the industrial-scale wind energy
production).
The Budapest Summit focused on Nabucco convened on January 26 (the
Southern energy corridor). The list of participating countries
included Turkey, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the US,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Georgia.
Attempts to attract Russia to Nabucco failed and on March 16 Gazprom
turned down the offer to join the project.
It is well-known that not the EU but the US is credited with launching
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum pipelines. The EU
will use its negotiating powers to help organize the summit on the
Trans-Caspian pipeline. Both the availability of the fuel for the
pipelines and the control over Nabucco depend on the extent to which
the EU and the US can influence the suppliers and transiters of the
energy resources. The EU will not deal with the problem of supplies
from Iran, which seems to be through with laying the groundwork for
the cooperation with India and China (a gas deal between Iran and
China was penned a few days ago).
There are no coincidences in politics. The EU will discuss the future
of Nabucco in Prague on May 8 ` the next day after the meeting on the
Eastern Partnership – with representatives of Georgia, Kazakhstan, and
Turkey attending the meeting.
What is being offered to the Eastern Partnership countries in terms of
the energy security? They are proposed to sign long-term treaties with
the EU on energy supplies and transit, to integrate their energy
infrastructures on the regional level, to integrate the energy markets
of Ukraine and the EU upon the modernization of the oil and gas
network, to make the energy sector of Azerbaijan compatible with that
of the EU while integrating the corresponding infrastructures, to
reform Belorussia’s energy sector and to organize the energy transit
cooperation between the latter and the EU.
Neither the GUAM aspirations nor the ius, and Kyiv energy summits
aimed at creating the Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian energy space and the
Eurasian oil transit corridor are reflected in the above. Could it be
because the initiatives were lobbied by the US, Poland, and Lithuania,
and Yushchenko was nominated as the key figure to promote them? Or,
perhaps, the reason is that when the summit held in November, 2008 in
Baku was attended by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Poland, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and the delegations from Greece, Bulgaria,
Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Switzerland, the US, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, and the European Commission, the forum’s declaration was
endorsed by everybody except for Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and only
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Turkey, and Poland agreed to
cooperate in the framework of the Eurasian oil transit corridor?
Clearly the EU is not inclined to create the transit corridor
bisecting Europe along the meridian or the East European regional
metrology center. It is not in the interests of the EU to construct a
regional energy pump aimed not so much at ensuring Europe’s own energy
security as at economically benefiting Ukraine, Belarus, Poland,
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. In any case the passage on the
importance of the Odessa-Brody-Gdansk pipeline and the support for its
construction was dropped from the EU communique on the Eastern
Partnership.
The modernization of Ukraine’s gas transit network seems to be the
country’s only project related to the EU energy security which has a
chance to survive. Clarity can be expected after the March 23 Brussels
conference on investments in the modernization of the Ukrainian gas
pipelines. Will the pragmatic EU dish out Euro 2.5 ` 5 bn for the
cause? This is likely under the condition erased from EU communique on
the Eastern Partnership that pipelines of the Eastern Partnership
countries should be jointly managed or owned by suppliers, transiters,
and buyers of the energy resources.
Conclusions
The Eastern Partnership agenda will be domin U of Ukraine, Moldavia,
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus but by passing the control
over the resources of the countries to the EU. The program of the
Eastern Partnership shows that the EU intends to focus on its own
problems related to energy security, labor market, and the benefits of
free trade zones based on the sectoral cooperation with particular
countries.
The Eastern partners will ` under certain circumstances ` increasingly
push for the `old Europe’s’ meeting their demands. The situation plays
in the hands of the US, opening to it the opportunity to bisect Europe
along the meridian and to create centers of influence over the EU,
mainly in the energy sphere. The US will also be able to take
advantage of the situation to downscale the cooperation between the EU
and Russia and to minimize Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space
both in Europe and in Asia.
The plans of the current Ukrainian administration to turn Ukraine into
a regional leader and a political, military or some other center and
to put to work the country’s strategic geopolitical location originate
not so much from the hope to boost its own development as from their
readiness to subordinate it to other players. The implementation of
the plans will irreversibly convert Ukraine into an instrument of the
US strategy in Eurasia.