Russia, realism and EU unity By Katinka Barysch
★ The EU can no longer claim to be building a strategic partnership with Russia that is based on common values. It needs to adjust its strategy to new realities. ★ The EU’s first task must be to reconcile internal differences among the various member-states. It will take time for the EU to revise its Russia policy in a way that all 27 member countries feel comfortable with. ★ For now, the Europeans should concentrate on forging common positions on the most p ressing questions, such as energy, missiles and Kosovo. And they need to start planning for the post-Putin period. Relations between Russia and the West have entered a new phase, characterised by co-operation in some areas and open confrontation in others. At home, the Kremlin muzzles the political opposition and tightens its grip over key industries. Abroad, Russia re a s s e rts its place as a great power. The US has been quicker to redefine its relationship with the ‘new’ Russia than the EU. Less concerned about Russia’s internal developments, Washington now mainly cares about getting Moscow’s 1 Council on Foreign help (or at least avoiding its Relations, ‘Russia’s wrong o b s t ruction) on international direction: What the US can issues such as the fight and should do’, March 2006; against terrorism.1 For the Trilateral Commission, EU, working out a new ‘Engaging with Russia: strategy is more diff i c u l t , The next phase’, 2006. because of history, close trade and energy links, and geographical pro x i m i t y, as well as internal divisions. But these challenges do not make a rethinking less urgent. The list of disagreements between Russia and the EU is getting longer by the day: Russia’s opposition to UN plans for Kosovo’s independence; its moves to frustrate Europe’s attempts to diversify energy supplies; blocked negotiations on a new EU-Russia t reaty; angry mobs outside the Estonian embassy in Moscow; the Kre m l i n ’s No to Britain’s extradition request in the Litvinenko murder; disagreements over how to resolve the ‘frozen conflicts’ in the
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Caucasus; and trade disputes over meat, raw timber and much else. Russia’s political elite has never loved the EU. Now many deem it acceptable to be rude about it. I heard one Russian politician recently describe the EU as “the area people fly over to get to Asia”. Another claimed that the EU was worse than the Soviet Union because it is run by the “diktat of b u reaucrats”. Russian officials have developed an annoying habit of countering every EU criticism by pointing to Europe’s own alleged failings, such as mafia activity in Southern Europe, economic p rotectionism or inadequate rights for minorities in the Baltic countries. Until recently, the EU’s reaction to Russia’s growing assertiveness has been a mixture of complacency, befuddlement and wishful thinking. Although the political rhetoric has become fiercer, and day-to-day co-operation more tedious, the Union has been clinging to its objective of building a ‘strategic partnership’ with Russia, based on ‘shared values’. The EU-Russia summit in Samara on May 18th showed that these days are over. The EU stopped pretending that its relationship with Russia is something that it is evidently not. The fact that the meeting produced few tangible results was in fact no disaster. In the past, EU leaders would not have dared
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