Viktor Beger
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RUSSIA – EU: TIME TO MAKE DECISIONS
24.06.2008
Europe
The 21st Summit EU-Russia summit is slated for June 26-27, 2008 in
Khanty-Mansiisk. Western Siberia is ready to greet the VIPs.
The meeting will mark the beginning of raising relations between the
EU and Russia onto a new level, as the process of working out a new
fundamental agreement to replace the 1997 Agreement on Cooperation
and Partnership has actually begun.
The negotiating process is expected to last for about 12 months
with about three years to ratify the adopted document. The coming
summit will become a major milestone in the formation of the legal
foundations of international relations in the 21st century.
*** The parties have completed the complicated and controversial
process of coordination of their positions for the preparation
of a document that would define the pattern of future EU-Russia
relations. The parties attested that the time for making concrete
decisions that are not be postponed any longer has come.
On May 26 the parties to the negotiations issued a mandate for the
right to hold negotiations by Moscow and Brussels, having overcome
the previous controversy between the EU and Russia as at large and
at the level of bilateral relations of a number of countries (Poland,
Great Britain, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) with Russia.
On the one hand the EU Commission of Foreign on External relations and
the policies of good-neighbourliness apparently is taking into account
the potentiality of claims to Russia made by certain EU member-states,
Lithuania, for one, turning into a never-ending process. Its demand
that Russia ratify the Eneergy Charter and restart supplying oil
to that country, settle "the frozen conflicts" in Georgia and the
Transdniester Republic, fulfil its pledges made at the moment it was
granted membership of the European Council is now replaced by "the
idea" of making Russia pay compensation for the harm done by "the
occupation USSR regime" to it. The meeting slated for June the 25 in
Warsaw of foreign ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia,
Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Sweden on the initiative
of Vilnius aimed at changing the current mechanism of Abkhazian
conflict settlement, as well as replacing the Russian peace-keepers
by a Western contingent, probably the way it was done in Kosovo.
On the other hand the expedience of a transit to working out a
new fundamental EU-Russia agreement is apparently brought home
to the parties by their realisation of the fact that in this case
"initiatives" are not put forward by Lithuania itself as it aims at
"delegating" to the EU the solution of some of its acute problems and
withholding them from the legal capacity of the United Nations, as well
as entwining the EU into a system of military and political relations
in the spirit of some sort of EU’s "NATOization". This assumption
finds confirmation in both its initiatives regarding Georgia and
the Transdniester Republic and its declared preparedness to go into
negotiations about deploying elements of the US anti-missile shield
on its territory.
Given that the EU indicates its stance on the foreign political
course of Georgia and Ukraine, the creation of GUAM and the project
of establishing of the Caspian-Black and Baltic Seas energy transit
space, it is being drawn, and appears to be gradually drawn into the
system of the military-and- political relations of the Euro-Atlantic
states. This is tantamount to a suggestion to be involved in the
process of supporting interests of the countries that are not its
members.
*** Framing of a new basic EU-Russia agreement is linked to the
problems of the EU development, the rotation in it since July 1,2008
of the chair country (France) as well as the results of the recent
EU-USA summit. The issue of consequences of the June 12 referendum
on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland will be looked into under the French
chairmanship. By January 1, 2009 it must be ratified by the remaining
9 EU member states.
On June 10 EU-US summit in Slovenia it was agreed to strengthen
bilateral cooperation, joint moves with regard to Iran and criteria
of a new international treaty on the climate were discussed. Also
on the agenda were issues of development of relations with Russia,
the situations in the Balkans situation including Kosovo and on
the Middle East, the problem of the growth of world food prices and
fighting against infectious diseases in Africa.
The visit of the US president to Europe in June is evidence of
his country’s striving to extend cooperation with Germany, France
and Italy.
George W.Bush tried to attract attention to N.Sarkozy’s being now his
"best friend" replacing Tony Blair, and France – America’s "first
friend." N.Sarkozy agrees to strengthen France’s ties with NATO not
ruling out the potentiality of its return to the bloc’s military
structure.
The French insist on deciding the issue the participation of France’s
armed forces in the Alliance’s military operations on their own
without handing them over to the NATO command in the time of peace,
and retaining its sovereign control of its nuclear potential. On June
17, 2008 French president published the basic articles of "The White
Book" referring to the strategic priorities of defence and security
of his country for the coming 15 years.
At the same time, the French initiative of the creation under the
aegis of the European Council of what is known as the Mediterranean
Union (Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algiers, Turkey, Egypt, France,
Greece, Italy, Spain, Malta and Portugal) is being implemented. The
Committee on External Policies of the Europarliament plans to
discuss conclusion of "specific agreements" (of the Black Sea
alliance) with Black Sea basin countries that are not EU members
with an eye to increasing the EU economic influence in the region
in order to ensure its participation in the process of settlement
of regional conflicts. Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia
as well as countries without access to the Black Sea, including
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Albania are expected to become the parties
of such cooperation. Condoleezza Rice must have had these and other
organisations in mind speaking about "the tied-up Europe" with
"working relationships."
But are the current military-and-political relations and those that
are taking shape compatible with the EU mission? The EU member-states
that are not NATO countries (Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta
and Sweden) have every right to ask this question. But given the EU
needs to have new military-and-political functions, what would the
expanding NATO do?
Regardless of the intensified development of military-and-political
ties within the European Economic Council, installing in the near
future within the EU framework of any semblance of integrated military
force is highly unlikely. This in turn would mean that the domineering
Western military-and-political structure will be NATO.
France’s intention to pursue its independent policies was mentioned
by the Russian premier in early June in his interview with "Le
Monde" after negotiations he had with N.Sarkozy, who then said:
"France has been pursuing and I hope continues to pursue independent
foreign policies." In turn Vladimir Putin said:"We expect much from
France’s chairmanship of the EU, first and foremost, a constructive
dialogue aiming at the establishment of the necessary legal base for
our interaction with the EU."
*** The parties to the Khanty-Mansiisk summit would definitely take
into consideration the need to form in the new fundamental agreement
articles regarding cooperation of the EU and Russia as partners,
unless the Russian proposals on the raising of the role of the three
branches of the European civilisation (Russia-EU-North America) with
an eye at ensuring the uniformity of the space of "Larger Europe"
stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok. All the more so, Sergei
Lavrov stressed, the EU agreed to devote the first article of the
new agreement to the area of security and defence.
At the same time the shifting of the centre of weight of
decision-making to commissions and bilateral contacts does not ensure
their efficient observance. This is evidenced by the lack of future
of "road maps" aiming to form uniform spaces (in economy; freedoms,
security and justice; external security, R&D and education) that
were approved at the May 2005 EU-Russia summit, are now just pieces
of paper.
It has been noted that the term "integration" has become very
rare in the EU-Russia diplomatic practices. Russian proposals on
the preparation of a "short-term but legally binding "agreement
agreed with the general European one where collective security and
exclusion of marginalisation and isolation of different states and
identification of zones with a different degree of security appear to
be quite logical. This is in full related to the military, financial,
energy, food and environmental security.
The start of negotiations on the preparation of a new EU-Russia
agreement was synchronous with the awareness – to quote P.Mandelson,
the EU Commissioner for Trade – of the fact of "inadmissibility"
of making "excess or over-politicised" claims to Russia, and the
entry into its final stage of the process of Russia’s entering
the WTO. That exactly requires the will of the EU as a consolidated
political subject, including the problem of export tariffs, activities
of state-run companies engaged in trade in commodities and services,
as well as the scope of the support of agriculture.
The dry statistics of the EU-Russia trade turnover (half of Russia’s
trade turnover, Russia’s third place as an exporter to the EU countries
and the fourth biggest importer of their products) are an indication
of the potential future cooperation in the global economy. The
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD) with its
membership of 18 EU members-states and 26 NATO countries responsible
for about two-thirds of the world’s commodities and services can
make its contribution to this cooperation. In 2007 5 countries
(Russia, Estonia, Slovenia, Israel and Chile) were invited to go into
negotiations about entering the OECD. Another 5 countries (Brazil,
China, India, Indonesia and South Africa were invited o enter talks
about the potential up scaling of the organisation).
Viewed against the background of the discussions by G8 finance
ministers in Osaka, and energy ministers (together with the invited
ministers from China, India and South Korea) discussions in Rome
of correspondingly the problems of the financial, foodstuffs and
raw materials’ crises as well as the growth of energy prices, the
Paris-based OECD Ministerial Council made the decision regarding the
Sovereign Funds of welfare and policies of the recipient countries,
which are huge financial flows. Remembering that, I must say that no
real decision was made on that score
The agenda of the July 2008 G8 summit in Japan will have on it the
problems of the global environment, development of African countries
and non-proliferation of nuclear arms.
However, even at present we can be confident that the Russian energy
policies as one of the biggest suppliers 0f oil would undoubtedly
in the focus of attention of the G8 discussions, and one of the most
significant themes pf of the summit would be measures to reduce the
growth of global oil prices. The way we see it, the Russian position
voiced by premier Vladimir Putin in May of 2008 at the talks with
the French premier Francois Fijion should remain unchanged, meeting
in full as it does the interests of ensuring national security and
competitiveness of this country.
*** Russia and the EU are now at the threshold of a new stage of
cooperation.
Much will depend on principal decisions made in Khanty-Mansiisk that
would form the basis of international relations. The timely beginning
of talks and the signing of the agreement on the strategic partnership
between Russia and the EU would mark the beginning of their new
rapprochement, allowing them to find better solutions of solving the
issues of collective security, the sustainable socio-economic growth,
pooling the efforts to overcome challenges of the age and to timely
response to the present-day threats.
It is important for Russia to continue working alongside the
strengthening of strategic Moscow-Brussels cooperation in the area of
common interests and joint activities in the realm of international
security with individual EU member-states countries on a bilateral
basis (especially with Germany, France and Italy) because Europe has
not worked out the uniform security and defence strategies.
The EU member-states could pay more attention to the declared
strategy of Russia’s socio-economic development to 2020, Russia-
to the guidelines of the EU development with an eye to ensuring the
use of European and Russian resources in common interests rather
than in the interests of third countries. The general character of
the present-day international relations to a great extent depends on
the efficient coordination of the EU and Russia.
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