President Vladimir Putin has been eager to restore Russia’s
superpower status to distract from domestic problems. Russian leaders
have traditionally demonstrated Moscow’s clout first in the post-Soviet
space, particularly in Eastern Europe.
The Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (COMECON) and the Warsaw Pact have today been replaced by the
Eurasian Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The question is how should the EU respond to this new geopolitical
competition with Moscow?
Faced with domestic difficulties, autocratic governments often strive
for foreign successes to divert attention and shore up public support.
This was the case when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in the
early 1980s and Putin’s actions today are not much different. Russia is
confronted with huge problems in education, housing and health services,
not to mention the anarchy and bloodshed in the Northern Caucasus.
Well-educated young people are taking to the streets demanding a share
of the Kremlin’s welfare.
Putin hasn’t addressed these domestic challenges head on, focusing
instead on foreign policy. At first, Russia became increasingly isolated
because of its stance on Syria and Iran, but thanks to clever Russian
diplomacy and a hesitant U.S., Moscow achieved remarkable successes in
2013 like the chemical weapons deal on Syria and the interim nuclear
agreement on Iran. And in Eastern Europe, Ukraine ‘chose’ to deepen
co-operation with Russia instead of forging closer ties with the EU.
Eastern Europe is divided into two spheres of influence. The EU uses
its Eastern Partnership (EaP) to promote co-operation with Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. It is not a waiting
room for EU membership, but a project to enhance these countries’
stability and prosperity and to ensure safe borders for the EU.
On the other side, Russia has the Eurasian Union-to-be (EaU) and the
CSTO. For now, the EaU is nothing but a customs union that includes
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but the Kremlin intends to bring in
Ukraine and some other former Soviet republics to form a competitor to
the EU. The CSTO is Russia’s military instrument in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia and includes a military assistance clause to prevent an
attack on any of its member states. The basis of Putin’s foreign and
security policy objectives – as laid down in Russian security documents –
is that Russia has privileged interests in the former Soviet republics
and therefore the right to intervene.
The issues at stake in Eastern Europe are a complicated web of
political, military, economic and energy issues. From the start, the
Kremlin denounced the EaP as an unacceptable project, seeing it as the
EU’s way of drawing Eastern Europe away from Russia and into the Western
orbit. As a result, pro-EU governments in Moldova and Georgia suffered
boycotts – as Ukraine, too, felt this last summer, before President
Viktor Yanukovich realigned from Brussels to Moscow. In the same vein,
Georgia’s intention to join NATO in 2008 was a step too far for Moscow
and the Russian invasion of Georgia put an end to this plan, at least
for many years to come.
On the economic front, energy rules. Despite the EU’s claims to have a
common energy policy, Moscow successfully divides and rules the EU
member states. The European Commission has launched a legal case against
Russia’s energy giant Gazprom for monopolistic action in the new
Eastern EU states, which are highly dependent on Russian gas. What’s
more, Moscow is doing everything it can to thwart the EU’s project to
construct pipelines directly to Azerbaijan and possibly Central Asia in
order to wean itself from dependence on Russian gas. Russia’s own
alternative pipelines to circumvent the current one through Ukraine –
Nord Stream to Germany and South Stream around the Black Sea – are yet
another way to try to undermine the EU’s common energy policy.
So how can the EU win the geopolitical game with Moscow? The answer
to this is quite simple and is to be found in European unity and vigour.
For too long Brussels has failed to do so and Moscow has exploited this
with its ‘divide and rule’ policy in Europe. The EU should be much more
aware of Russia’s foreign policy objectives and anticipate its actions.
If the EU is more cognizant of Russia opposition to the EaP, then it
could take measures to soften Moscow’s boycotts of EaP member states.
The EU claims to stand for democracy and human rights and Brussels
should therefore go beyond merely making statements and actively support
human rights groups and the political opposition in Russia as well as
in Ukraine. And instead of bi-lateral energy deals with Moscow, all 28
EU member states together should sign one gas contract with Russia and
collectively support gas pipelines to bypass the Russian ones.
With a
genuinely cohesive energy policy, the EU will strengthen its political
manoeuvrability vis-à-vis the Kremlin, and thus bolster its endeavours
in the field of human rights and democracy. Such policies will show
former Soviet republics that the EU has much more to offer them than
Moscow’s alternative Eurasian Union.
Note EU-Digest: Marcel de Haas is a Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael
EU-Digest
