Wg^Z[^c\ cdiZ WHAT DOES THE WAR IN GEORGIA MEAN FOR EU FOREIGN POLICY? By Tomas Valasek The war in Georgia divided the European Union instead of uniting it. Some member-states condemned Russia and gave (non-military) aid to the Georgian government; others accused Tbilisi of provoking the war. Their reactions suggest that EU capitals make different assumptions about Moscow’s goals and intentions towards countries on Russia’s borders, and about Europe’s interests in these countries. These differences will thwart Europe’s attempts to craft a common Russia policy. But they should not prevent Europe from rethinking the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbourhood. In response to the war in Georgia, the EU should take a more active role in defusing ‘frozen’ conflicts in Eastern Europe, and it should accelerate the integration of countries between the EU and Russia into the European Union. The six-day war began on August 7th with a Georgian artillery attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. The attack killed a large number of civilians as well as several Russian peacekeepers, prompting Russia to invade Georgia and push its forces out of South Ossetia. Russian forces also entered another breakaway province, Abkhazia, occupied several towns in Georgia proper, and briefly appeared to threaten the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. A French-brokered ceasefire ended fighting on August 12th. At the time of writing, Russian forces remain in the separatist territories, with some stationed on the Georgian side of the provincial boundary, in the towns of Gori and Poti. EU member-states gave varied responses to the crisis. France, the holder of the rotating EU presidency, refused to condemn either side. Similarly, the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Europe should be “an honest broker”. Other countries were happy to point fingers but disagreed on who was to blame. The Slovak prime minister Róbert Fico, alluding to the August 7th Georgian artillery attack on South Ossetia, said that “we all know very well who provoked the war”. Most other states which were willing to finger a culprit blamed Russia. Poland issued a statement criticising “Putin’s imperialistic and revisionist” intervention. Britain’s Gordon Brown condemned Russia’s “continued aggression”. And the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, labelled the Russian military action “the gravest breach of the commitments of the Council of Europe”. During the war, the EU governments developed sufficient consensus to pursue a two-pronged policy. They made strong statements discouraging Russia from expanding the war beyond South Ossetia (with partial success: as noted above Russian forces also entered Abkhazia and parts of Georgia proper). More successfully, French president Nicolas Sarkozy in his capacity as the holder of the EU’s rotating presidency brokered the cease-fire agreement that halted the fighting. The French president is continuing to talk to both sides about the exact terms for peace. These are important achievements. Europe’s first priority during the war was to end the fighting. The EU’s balanced policy towards the conflict enables it to play a mediating role; and so far Sarkozy has played that role with some success.
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