EU-Russia Relations and the Future of Eurasian Security
The trouble is that EU-Russia relations lack any coherent conceptual or substantive political foundation. Conceptually, the EU is a post-national political entity that exercises ‘soft power' based on pooled sovereignty, whereas Russia is a post-imperial state whose ‘hard power' is grounded in national sovereignty. Neither a language of abstract values nor a policy of concrete interests can bridge this gap. Instead, what is a required is a prior agreement on a conceptual framework that can address these fundamental differences and identify real commonalities – something akin to the Bretton Woods conference or the Helsinki process (more about that later).
Politically, the inability to agree on such a common conceptual framework has prevented the emergence of a shared political culture that can help give rise to a cohesive model for EU-Russia cooperation. The Union likes to speak a language of common values but in reality the Community institutions and the 27 member-states promote their commercial and other interests in the post-Soviet space. Russia denounces Western unilateralism but Moscow's fierce defence of national sovereignty is at odds with a new multilateral vision which the Kremlin has called for since the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Little wonder that EU-Russia relations have failed to transform either party or pan-European geo-politics. Since the Union's High Representative Javier Solana first spoke about a ‘strategic partnership' in 1999 and the then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin echoed this vision, neither side has undertaken the necessary commitment to forge a genuine alliance. Even before the 2004 eastern enlargement, EU member-states such as the UK and Denmark welcomed cooperation with Moscow in the ‘global war on terror' but refused to question or transform the transatlantic security arrangements that effectively exclude Russia – the NATO-Russia being nothing more than a talking shop designed to pacify Moscow and to provide a semblance of Euro-Atlantic cooperation. For its part, the Kremlin always privileged bilateral relations with Germany, France and Italy over the more complicated multilateral engagement and sustained negotiations with the arcane structures in Brussels. The current approach of incremental change and ministerial-level negotiations on the ‘Four Common Spaces' is unlikely to yield any significant results.
In its present configurations, EU-Russia cooperation is unable to solve the most pressing problems or to offer a real counterweight to the unilateralism of the Atlantic Unipole which shows little sign of abating: the Iraq and Afghanistan fiasco and the financial meltdown have temporarily weakened the neo-con rhetoric but it remains to be seen whether the incoming Obama Administration is really prepared to develop a new U.S. foreign policy vision.
What are the most urgent tasks confronting both Moscow and Brussels? First of all, to put EU-Russia on a stronger political footing by agreeing on a new PCA. Second, to address the question of energy security by drawing up an Energy Charter that privileges long-term mutual interests of stable demand and reliable supply at fair prices over short-term political calculations. Third, to solve the simmering political tensions and territorial disputes that characterise the post-Soviet space. In fact, this third task is the single most important challenge, as evinced by the repercussions of the Georgian conflict of August 2008.
Across the post-Soviet space and elsewhere in Eurasia, territorial borders are notoriously unstable. Recent military interventions on the Balkans and in the Caucasus have changed the dynamic in favour of secessionism. Taken together, the Western recognition of Kosovo and Russia's support for South Ossetia and Abkhazia have emboldened violent separatists and legitimated unilaterally declared independence. However valid their claim to self-determination, these and other breakaway provinces are little more than pawns in an escalating “great power” game opposing the U.S.A., the EU, Russia and, increasingly, China.
Moreover, unless a new security umbrella is put in place, violence could erupt in the other “frozen conflicts” in Azerbaijan's Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh and the Russian-backed former Moldovan province of Transnistria. Contested territories such as the Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet, might be next. We could also see an acute outbreak of secessionist fever in the Serbian enclave of Bosnia and of Kosovo, or in the multi-ethnic state of Macedonia – not to mention Russia's North Caucasus, Uzbekistan's Andijan region and the Chinese northwestern province of Xinjiang.
The Georgian crisis revealed once more how inadequate the prevailing security arrangements in the wider Eurasian space are. None of the existing organizations is capable of adjudicating territorial disputes or resolving the fate of regions that seek self-rule. NATO is divisive, the EU divided, the Council of Europe and the OSCE feeble. What Eurasia requires is a different security architecture that can minimize the ubiquitous risk of conflict contagion and provide long-term political settlements.
That has been President Medvedev's main foreign policy initiative since taking office. Beginning with his first visit to the West as President on 5 June 2008 in Berlin, Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly invited his European and Atlantic counterparts to join him in negotiating a Treaty on European Security. Such a treaty would provide collective security guarantees for all parties and lay down common norms governing bilateral and multilateral relations. Moreover, in his address to the World Policy Conference on 8 October 2008 in Evian, President Medvedev stated his idea to convene a pan-European security conference with the participation not only of individual states but also of international organisations active in Europe, including the EU, NATO, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Dubbed “Helsinki-2,” President Medvedev's plan is of course modelled on the OSCE's forebear, the CSCE – a two-year process of sustained east-west engagement in the 1970s that was instrumental in mitigating the binary logic of the Cold War and establishing a common framework for regular discussion and multilateral negotiation. With the OSCE's remit nowadays effectively reduced to the “low politics” of electoral observation and monitoring peace-keeping missions, neither the NATO-Russia Council nor the EU's strategic partnership with Moscow is in a position to provide a platform for the “high politics” of security and defence policy.
The EU is uniquely positioned to respond to Moscow's initiative. Precisely because the Union lacks a shared geo-strategic vision and the necessary military capabilities, it needs to forge ties with other powers. Moreover, there is now a window of opportunity to develop a new approach. With the USA in political transition, countries such as Germany, Italy and France need to take a lead and convince their fellow EU (and possibly US) colleagues that a new pan-Eurasian security architecture which includes Russia is both desirable and feasible.
Concretely, the EU could co-convene a security conference with the participation of Russia, the USA, separatist regions and their (former) masters. Not unlike the Anapolis summit of 2007, such a meeting could begin by acknowledging mutual security interests and recognizing the problems of unilateral declarations of independence such as that of Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The participant parties to this conference could then debate and devise new policies and mechanisms for crisis prevention and crisis management. In addition, they could devise new criteria for dealing with unrecognized states, and agree new rules of military engagement in the event of separatism that would be binding on all parties.
Unfortunately, the EU seems to ignore Moscow's overtures. Opposition from Eastern Europe and the Baltic States to relations with Russia is unsurprising but not fatal. Within the EU of 27, a few countries can be swayed if the common interests of the Union as a whole are at stake. On the European side, another problem is ambivalent stance of the hyperactive French President Nicholas Sarkozy. On the one hand, he helped mediate in the Georgian crisis and welcomed President Medvedev's ideas in relation to a Treaty on European Security at Evian. On the other hand, he wants to discuss this initiative within the sole framework of the OSCE and under his leadership France will re-integrate NATO's military structures at the alliance's summit in April. Closer EU-NATO cooperation is likely to drive another wedge between the Union and Russia. As such, President Sarkozy jeopardises not just France's credibility of being an honest broker but also the potential for strategic ties between the Union and Russia.
The future of EU-Russia relations will largely depend on whether closer cooperation between Brussels and Moscow can solve the most pressing problems and improve the prospects for stability and peace in their shared neighbourhood. Besides the deepening economic crisis, border disputes and breakaway regions constitute a serious security threat. At a time where existing institutions and policies lack a coherent conceptual basis, the EU must not miss another opportunity to help build a proper pan-Eurasian security architecture.
Adrian Pabst
Adrian Pabst teaches politics and religion at the University of Nottingham. Since 1998, he has been a Research Fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies. He has published articles on international relations, religion and geopolitics in The International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, The Moscow Times and The National. He is currently writing Pan-Europe, a book on a new, pan-European political and security architecture.