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Russia as a test case for European foreign policy

Europe is divided about how it should behave towards Russia: the new EU members in Eastern Europe have warned that Russia is engaged in power politics, while the West European members of the EU would like to continue their partnership with Russia.

When Russia elects a new president on 2 March 2008, the European Union will be watching with keen interest. There is general agreement among Europeans that this vote runs counter to democratic principles, and that the election of Vladimir Putin's candidate Dmitry Medvedev is a foregone conclusion. The OSCE has therefore decided not to send observers to Russia to monitor the election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry
Medvedev
Photo: AP

How should Europe behave towards a Russia that not only violates democratic principles but also engages in power politics, demonstrates its military strength and uses its energy resources for strategic purposes? The EU's ideas of "soft power" and economic cooperation do not provide a convincing answer to this question, and the positions of the individual EU states vary enormously on the issue.

Russia divides Europe

Europe's ability to reach consensus on its policy towards Russia is regarded as a kind of test case for common European foreign policy. The issue is complicated because it involves several different policy areas –security, energy and human rights – and each EU state's priorities are different depending on its geographical position and historical experience.

Russia is exploiting the disagreement among Europeans and seeking to divide and rule, Jaroslaw Gizinski wrote on 18 December 2006 in Newsweek Polska. "Moscow has repeatedly insisted on bilateral agreements on several issues or proposed the exclusion of new member states and singled out older members for preferential treatment. It is trying to find out who is willing to step out of line, so that it can make a deal with the stronger members and dictate its conditions to the others."

Not the partner the West dreamed of

In recent years Western Europe has come to realise that under Putin, Russia is not striving for Western standards of democracy as it appeared to be doing following the end of the Soviet Union. "Russia is no longer the partner we dreamed of," the French newspaper Le Figaro wrote on 19 July 2007. Russia only sought rapprochement with the West, Robert Kagan noted in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 9 February 2008, as long as it was "weak and poor." "But now that Russia has regained its strength it no longer wishes to adapt itself to Europe but to go its own way to regain its former greatness."

Nevertheless, the West European heads of state are courting Putin, French philosopher Andre Glucksmann wrote in a critical commentary on the French president's visit to Moscow on 4 December 2007 in the Italian Corriere della Sera. "Europe should form a common energy policy and present a united front to the Kremlin. But on the contrary, all the European leaders are racing to Moscow, trying to beat one another there."

Contrasting approaches

In a report for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Mark Leonard and Nicu Popescu divided European countries into five different types with respect to their relationship with Russia: the first group, which includes Germany, France, Italy and Spain, has strategically based bilateral relationships with Russia that sometimes run counter to common EU interests. They labelled the other four groups "frosty pragmatists," "friendly pragmatists," "new Cold Warriors" and states like Cyprus that are close to Russia on many issues.

The two political scientists described as "frosty pragmatists" and "new Cold Warriors" above all the East European members of the EU, the Soviet Union's former satellites, whose relations with Russia are burdened by the past. The EU's eastern expansion has put relations with Russia "under stress," Hansrudolf Kramer wrote in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 16 May 2007. Since Moscow has never addressed its "ignominious role in its domination of the people of Eastern Europe after World War II" it continued to behave aggressively towards these states, Romanian-German writer Richard Wagner wrote in the same newspaper on 10 May 2007.

Sovereign self-determination

Josef Zieleniec, a Czech member of the European Parliament, believes Russia is continuing to deny its former satellites the right to sovereign self-determination. "It uses every opportunity to cut them off from the rest of the EU and play them off against the Western European member states," he wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 16 May 2007. One example of this is the debate about the planned US missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland. Similar warnings came from Bulgaria: "It is becoming increasingly difficult to allay the suspicion that Bulgaria is really playing a role dictated by the Kremlin. Bulgaria is to become Russia's Trojan Horse in western society," Jewgeniy Daynow wrote in Dnevnik on 8. May 2007.

Together with the Baltic States, Poland is the EU country that has been especially critical of the EU's relations with Russia. For many years Poland blocked EU plans to conclude a new partnership agreement with Russia, because Russia had banned imports of Polish meat. The conflict about the meat imports was only resolved after the government of Donald Tusk took office in autumn 2007 and relations became more relaxed. Indeed, at a meeting in Moscow the Russian and Polish foreign ministers were so unanimous that Alice Bota and Johannes Voswinkel asked in the Germany weekly Die Zeit on 7. February 2008: "Is this the beginning of a Polish-Russian friendship?"

Friends of the Kremlin leave office

In the countries of Western Europe, the benevolent attitude to Russia changed after new leaders came to power in France, Germany and Italy. The former heads of state Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder and Silvio Berlusconi had cultivated an almost friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin. In particular Schröder's statement in a television interview in 2004 that Putin was an "unimpeachable democrat" was often cited as typical of this attitude.

After Angela Merkel, a former East German, came to power in Germany, it was not only Germany's attitude to Russia that changed; the whole European position shifted: "The exit from the political stage of members of the old guard of Kremlin allies such as Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi and Jacques Chirac is making it more difficult for Moscow to achieve its goals in Europe," Uldis Smits wrote gleefully in the Latvian newspaper Latvijas Avize on 15 May 2007.

The Polish Rzeczpospolita qualified this judgement on 16 October 2007, saying only the "form and atmosphere" in German-Russian relations had changed, but not the fundamental positions. The British Financial Times had already declared on 16 May 2007: "The German economy needs a good relationship with a stable, albeit authoritarian Russia, and that has a notable influence in Berlin."

Pragmatism and diplomacy

The picture is similar in France. Under President Nicolas Sarkozy France has taken a harsher stance towards the Kremlin, Christian Müller wrote in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 10 October 2007. But this harshness applied only to the tone, Axel Veiel complained in the Berliner Zeitung of 10 October 2007. Sarkozy reproached Russia about its human rights violations in Chechnya, but the French and Russian presidents were pragmatic enough to "cooperate when it comes to economic matters advantageous to both sides."

By contrast, Britain's relations with Russia have been extremely strained since the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. The British government has demanded the extradition of the former KGB agent suspected of committing the murder. "Like silver polonium dust, this affair carries enough strength to poison relations between Moscow and London," The Guardian wrote on 23 May 2007. One consequence of this crisis was the closure of the British Council offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, which took place following massive pressure from Russia.

A tough or a relaxed attitude

In view of such events, members of the political opposition are demanding that the EU take a tougher stand towards Russia. Aleksei Venediktov, chief editor of the Russian radio station "Ekho Moskvy," told the Hungarian HVG in an interview on 24 January 2008: "Exaggerated politeness toward Moscow is a big mistake, because the Russian elite considers this attitude a sign of weakness. You have to deal with Russia fairly but decisively"

In Western European media, however, there are many who take the opposite view, saying the EU should not measure Russia with its own yardstick but should take a more relaxed attitude. Michael Thumann wrote in Die Zeit on 17 May 2007, for example: "If we reduce our excessive expectations of the EU's relations with Russia, those relations are more likely to improve. We get along well with China without wanting to make it European. Russia deserves the same respect for its path."

Johannes Gernert

Johannes Gernert is 27 years old and writes for various newspapers and magazines. He studied journalism and English in Berlin and Northern Ireland and then ...
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