CEPS European Neighbourhood Watch. Issue 41
Предлагаем вашему вниманию очередной выпуск бюллетеня
CEPS European Neighbourhood Watch. Issue 41
www.ceps.eu/files/NW/NWatch41.pdf
Editorial by Michael Emerson: The August War and Beyond
The August war between Georgia and Russia has become the catalyst and challenge for the complete landscape of European security strategies.
One may start of course in that small South Ossetian town of Tskhinvali. Some things are clear. Georgia lost the war, because it fell for the Russian bait with a militarily hopeless attempt to take over South Ossetia. It also lost any remaining plausibility to claim its former territorial frontiers.
But Russia lost the international public diplomacy war. If it had kept its military to South Ossetia it would have got much understanding. By invading Georgia-proper it took the fatal step of associating itself with the image of the Soviet tanks in Prague 1968. Hence it could not get support from any CIS state except Belarus, and more significantly not from its frequent voting partner in the UN Security Council, China.
The United States warned Tbilisi not to engage in this military action in the days and hours beforehand, but failed to control its friend.
President Sarkozy and the French EU Presidency was the only actor to win any credit. But this leaves the EU with much to think about. Most immediately there are the loose ends to the 6-point peace plan to be tied up, which the Geneva talks in mid-October have to address, with the issues of refugee return and of monitoring their rights within South Ossetia heading more likely towards impasse than resolution.
For the EU the more fundamental question is how to follow through on a host of issues: how to ensure continuity of leadership in foreign policy beyond the ‘moment' of an effective but passing presidency; how to engage with Russia; how to succeed in energy diversification; how to deepen the effectiveness of its policies towards the whole of the wider Europe.
The EU and its member states have also to take position on major issues for NATO and OSCE. The Bucharest NATO summit declaration of April 2008, that Georgia and Ukraine “will be members”, looks more inadequate than ever. Cited as an unexpected triumph by some, it turns out to be a piece of ill-considered corridor drafting, revealing a deplorable lack of clarity over its enlargement criteria. Should the deadly serious matter of Article 5 guarantees be extended to a country whose leadership can engage in a wild military adventure, or to one whose population is not united in wanting to join the alliance?
President Medvedev is calling for a new pan-European security architecture, without saying what it should consist of. Foreign Minister Lavrov at the UN General Assembly termed this a search for ‘Helsinki–2', then citing various normative principles which are perfectly defined in ‘Helsinki–1' (the 1975 Final Act). OSCE is the custodian of these principles, which are not out of date at all.
However, maybe getting now closer to the point, Lavrov slipped in another principle with those of Helsinki-1, namely “the inadmissibility of strengthening one's own security by infringing upon the security of others”. This can be read as diplomatic language for what writers about geo-politics call ‘sphere of influence'; which is not worthy of a ‘Helsinki-2', but more reminiscent of some infamous 20 th century pacts. So this sees a huge clash of principle, even where it may not be at all inevitable, if the scenario for Nato enlargement sees some candidates so far from political preparedness. But still the political objectives remain, certainly for the EU, to foster the democratic ‘Europeanisation' of Ukraine, Georgia and others in the Eastern neighbourhood. This should mean in the foreseeable future an upgrading of EU work in the region, and with less from Nato for the time being at least. Could the EU work up its political to do its part in this?
The idea of a more acceptable Helsinki-2 leaves the EU itself with something to do in Vienna. What is certainly obsolete about OSCE is its formal structure of 56 equal sovereign member states, from Andorra and the Vatican to Russia and the United States. The EU accounts now for half of the seats around a very long table, without the EU itself being more than an observer; and so it is largely responsible for this organizational obsolescence, something more for it to think about. The EU might not only move to establish its own full presence as member of OSCE, best after entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, but better still go on to propose a core group of major powers as a European Security Council, to act as a permanent contact group on European security matters. This could go an important way towards meeting another long-standing Russian request, in a formula that would not have to give Russia any veto over all European affairs (as has at times been the implication of their demands).