The re-set of the European Union-Russia Partnership; in quest of regional governance
At the intersection of regional worlds
Bouncing for more than a century in between concerts of powers and the global government of liberals dreaming of a globally –wide legitimate mandate, the international system has come to a stand- still as the nation-state is back on the rise mainly as in flux regions such as South Caucasus praises the nation state sovereignty.
That in return gradually pushes for functionalism in international relations, way far from common global driving ideals and more relying on domestic issues, at best regional common ones. From frozen conflicts in the Caucasus, to open ones in the Middle East and ready to be fired open in Asia- Pacific, the quest for global governance is rather ardent, yet opposed by fierce domestic politics both in the Europe and the US.
Many calling for the demise of the states as obsolete organizations of post-modern societies, hard-core realists trumpeting the return of states as the main societal constructs having capacity to legitimately
* Draft essay as fundaments for research during author’s fellowship at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) during September- December 2014. We encourage readers to make observations and contribute to the research plan.
take action and reaction on behalf of nations, few would argue the “return of history” in terms of path dependencies and centre-periphery international relation, with marginal states emerging as global economic powers and old empires in formation.
Growing global and regional challenges in terms of security and prosperity yields for cooperation and “new type of great power relationship”. Yet, both the EU and Russia took a U-turn in terms of rejuvenation of the Cold War politics announcing an astonishing overt deviation to a binary ideological fueled zero-sum game.
As on several occasions and on myriad of scholars’ papers, the EU was described as shattering regional influence; it is high time that the ENP sifted from con-frontation to cooperation in addressing its neighborhood.
The EU rhetoric on the rule of law and human rights does not hold any current strategic move while Russia plays realpolitik and the US expressing frustration with the lack of coherence and direction in solving political turmoil in the EU neighborhood.
On one side the paradigm of the ENP, closely following on Article 8 of the EU Treaty “an area of prosperity and good neighborliness, founded on the values of the Union”, on the other side limited by policy design and the pace of societal transformations in the states targeted.
Covertly projected as an instrument for geopolitics, the ENP dragged the European Union into power politics that it has not been prepared to play. Either because of lack of coherent external policy as the main policy drivers often resorts to foreign policy to respond to national interests, or due to the political and economic turmoil that swamped the EU since 2008.
Russia’s assertiveness announces a reset of the power relations in the region. Georgia uprising in 2008 that led to a conflict with Russia, Transnistria separatist claims, the Arab Spring and several frozen conflicts stand as fault lines in between the EU and Russia that raise further com-petitive stakes and inadequate responses rather than strategically bring the two players into joint efforts in order to bring stability and security in Europe and the immediate vicinity.
President Putin several times proposed the project of a free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Unfortunately, as playing just geopolitics, the EU has constantly refused to embrace such a revolutionary approach.
The planned 2015 Eurasia Economic Union brings in wide and positive prospective for the entire Europe not only for Russia and Central Asia. Therefore, Russia capacity to “ride a horse, once it is saddled” overpasses the EU shortsighted strategic vision and limited congruence of policy buildup and implementation. As the EU remains a satellite of US, there are further risks down the road to assume a sincere and direct relationship with Russia.
The one-sided approach of EU in dealing with the Eastern Partnership, ignoring societal entrenched systems that make Russia a must-in actor in any country in the region, has conducted to a crisis in the EU- Russia relations that may jeopardize the prospects of shifting from diplomatic narratives to a joint effort in advancing the European integration project, from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Since 1997, the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed by the EU and Russia has produced a rapid growth of trade and investment relations amongst the two making the EU the first trading partner and the most important investor in Russia (up to 75% of Foreign Direct Investment stocks in Russia come from EU Member). The new EU-Russia Agreement currently under negotiations was halted in 2010 mainly because of the announced EU Eastern Partnership and the Common Economic Space promoted by Russia and intentions to set up a Eurasian Economic Union, both sides pointing at the other for pushing into defining spheres of influence. According to Directorate- General for Trade statistics[1], if Ukraine stood as the third Russian trading partner in 2012, when it comes to the EU trade with the world, Ukraine does not even come amongst the top 10.
Hence, there is no surprise that the Association Agreement proposed by the EU was perceived as heavily impinging upon Russia’s national interests, the situation around Ukraine being described by a Russian government source as a “textbook example of a trade war”. The proposed trade and economic roadmap architected by the EU technocrats in Brussels looked very much as ascribing an overt function to the Ukrainian market, such as of a “Trojan horse” [2] to break into the Russian economic system. That in return triggered forced counter measures from Russia and turned Ukraine into a proxy battle field.
Our claim is that the EU has not been able to ensure an all-inclusive European “security and prosperity community”, as an expression of the validity and universality of the liberal model, that would live up to expectations in the EU immediate vicinity. That raises questions on the feasibility and appropriateness of the EU transformative power disregarding geopolitical and cultural factors in the region.
In an area where frozen conflicts remain sided on the international agenda though the liberal paradigm of human rights, the rule of law and the values of democracy has been steadily advanced towards Eastern Europe, the EU looked to alter aggressively the post- Cold War order in Eastern Europe hassling on domestic societal systems and that has proved to be in blatant contradiction to Russia’s interests.
The research analyzes the key the challenges that Russia-EU is facing in designing a better suited external policy to the shared Eastern neighborhood and the misfit and congruence in between current Russia and the EU regional integration policies with an outreach strategy further towards South and North East Asia.
In quest of a new Great Power Relations
The end of the Cold War and the relative short US unilateralism brought at the outset of a new era, a redefinition of international relations when China claims for a re-set in terms of power relations globally, multipolarity further raises political cleavages within the same regions.
With China gaining economic traction in the Far East and also in Central Asia, the South Caucasus partly inclined to the EU integrationist project, and recently with the uprising in Ukraine, Russia regional greatness is questioned.
Hence, to a large extent, Russia’s attitude and realist based approach to foreign policy is meaningful, yet, its stance on the conflict in Ukraine mirrors an “obsolete Euro-centric foreign trade and economic mentality”[3].While too weak to lead on out of the region battlefields and internally on shallow political and social waters, Russia retrenchment at home signals necessity to recharge and reassert state capabilities and pursue maintaining global posture, that for the moment it relies mostly on its immediate neighborhoods that happen to be part of the former URSS.
With the rising of a new center of global economy and power politics, Asia, both Russia and the EU needs to re-orient their foreign policy towards enhanced economic and security cooperation.
Russia has solid economic and ideational reasons not to let loose the former Soviet space; with substantial Russian ethnic groups in all of these countries, and economic interdependence further promoted by the Eurasia integration project, Russia pursuing its national interests may be misinterpreted and misguided only by greenhorns in international relations and less by pundits. Rusia pursues a just foreign policy towards its neighborhoods not that much to respond to aggressive unilateral moves from the “Trans-Atlantic partnership” as much as for the advancing the greatness of a nation, once an Empire.
The European Union engaged into establishing various regional orders that would correspond to the acquis communautaire that eventually proved to be a project in disguise to revert the regional governance ignoring Russia. On one side the paradigm of the ENP, closely following on Article 8 of the EU Treaty “an area of prosperity and good neighborliness, founded on the values of the Union”, on the other side limited by policy design and the pace of societal transformations in the states targeted. Projected as an instrument for geopolitics, the ENP dragged the European Union into power politics that it has not been prepared to play. Either because of lack of coherent external policy as the main policy drivers often resorts to foreign policy to respond to national interests, or due to the political and economic turmoil that swamped the EU since 2008.
Russia’s assertiveness announces a reset of the power relations in the region. The uprising in Georgia in 2008, Transnistria separatist claims, the Arab Spring and several frozen conflicts stand as fault lines in between the EU and Russia that raised further competitive stakes and inadequate responses rather than strategically brings the two players into joint efforts in order to bring stability and security in Europe and the immediate vicinity.
The EU and Russia definitely needs a new model of cooperation based on mutual benefit and respect seeking for streamlining and narrowing the fault lines amongst the two countries. The geopolitical gaming needs to be moved further to the borders of the continent. The EU and Russia need to shift the focus from bilateral issues to regional and even global critical trends in ensuring security and social order. Loads of conflicts at the periphery of Europe pose risks of trans-national terrorism, nascent nationalism and not the least economic destabilization. Sensitive views on human rights and pluralist governing systems need to be addressed at the regional level with a timely feasible roadmap, less linked to spheres of influence characterized by frozen societal transformations that may be prone to long-standing disagreements. Challenges remain as on energy, security and trade relations. All of that have to be recognized by the EU in a less normative fashion like and more in political realities terms.
Improving governance in the EU and Russia common neighborhoods yields a joint effort that would eventually restore the normative status of both Russia and the EU and facilitate an overt truly integration project. A win –win sum game ideology applied to the Eastern neighborhood is no less beneficial to both Russia and the EU. On the contrary, in times of turbulent social changes globally, enough resilience for reset of power relations and reshape of geopolitics may become the core of international relations more circumstantially defined and projected.
Russia and the EU are equally responsible on developing policy relations in terms of either in or out, as both Eastern European project and the Eurasian inte-gration project were mutually exclusive by default, eventually leading to political deadlock and turning into an open conflict in between Ukraine and Russia.
The Single Economic Space inte-gration project in Eurasia is already taking steps towards free trade with its Asian and Pacific partners. That poses further challenges for the EU that exposed clumsiness and obsolete approach in dealing with Russia’s integration projects in Eurasia.
President Putin[4] has proposed several times by now further integration by constructing a Free Trade Area from Lisbon to Vladivostok. That idea goes as back as to 2003.
In August 1849 at the International Peace Congress Victor Hugo “A day will come when you France, you Russia, […] you England, you Germany, you all, nations of the continent, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious individuality, will be merged closely within a superior unit and you will form the European brotherhood […] A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe […]”.
Research objectives
The aim of the study is fourfold:
(a) to identify the misfit in between the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU and Russia policies vis-à-vis the Eurasia Economic Union, with a particular view on the European Neighborhood Policy towards Ukraine and the security issues concerned;
(b) to analyze the causal chain that led to the tensed relations and divergent positions hysterically called of a “second World War” type. In 1998, the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan assessed the decision of Clinton administration to expand NATO towards East as being a “… a tragic mistake… There was no reason for this whatsoever. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way… It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia.”;
(c) to conceptually explore incongruence in between the internal law as a normative framework underpinning the international security policies and the factuality of the regional governance amongst states. Sovereignty as it was originally defined (Westphalia 1648) needs to be revised as a complex factor related matrix emerge as impinging redefinition of national interests despite of the evolved international system;
(d) to project potential scenarios to redesign the strategic partnership in between Russia and the EU.
A reasoning framework for the research programme
Throughout the research programme the author would shed light on the following questions meant to prompt the whole study endeavor: are the Western values system and Pax Americana soft power yet appealing in the Eastern Europe in the near future? From an ideological angle – what refreshment with a new narrative may fill in the vacuum left by the failure of neoliberalism? From an international policy angle – how to consolidate the regional security and development, what mechanisms and instruments to use in the Eastern Europe as the EU, earlier coined as the “world modernity designer”, needless to say that it is far from having the capability to be the guardian construction of any form of modernity back home that would eventually strengthen its posture in shaping the regional order, and US is pivoting, pursuing retrenchment or at least rapprochement towards Asia Pacific? How has the concept of sovereignty evolved in the Eastern Europe? How capable and willing are these states of Eastern Europe to form larger coalition and deploy resources for the benefit of a regional society, and protect regional public goods? Would domestic shallow economic and social contexts override the larger regional interest of these countries? What to include on the EU and Russia agenda for the next 20 years or so? What the EU wants from Russia, and what Russia wants from the EU in bringing regional order and stability? How to revive the Russia-EU momentum? What is the misfit and congruence in between current Russia and EU policies in terms of regional governance?
The entire research endeavor is at the cross roads of realism and supra-nationalist approaches. The author dwells on the assumption that the current global system is not in any way as anarchical as intergovernmentalists maintain it to be as it shares a transformative ontology. Rather stability and order are secured and transformed through processes of institutionalization and identity changes (Schimmelfennig and Rittberger, 2006; 84). From here, I would (a) review the main theories dealing with security, nationalism, regional integration and power politics in international relations, (b) analyze the EU and Russia foreign policy responses to pressing global challenges in general and to the failure of state governance and security issues in Eastern Europe in particular, (c) dwell on the historical path that shape current social, political and cultural dynamics in Eastern Europe, (d) exploring the major external pressure standing out regarding the prospects for a more effective and pragmatic regional partnership taken in global governance in general and in the Eastern Europe in particular, (e) scenario build up for the re-set of the Russia-EU partnership need in ensuring regional governance in general and security in particular (f) defining a historically bound matrix of security issues in Eastern Europe; one could argue that the universality of security approaches in the West does not fit within the current socio-political and cultural context of the Eastern Europe region.
[1] European Commission, European Union, Trade in Goods with Russia, 2013, p.9-10.
[2] Alexander Gabuev, Elizaveta Surnacheva, Sergei Sidorenko, Who influenced the Kremlin's policy in Ukraine?, Russia Direct, 2014.
[3] Sergei Karaganov, Oleg Barabanov, Timofei Bordachev, Toward the Great Ocean, or the New Globalization of Russia, Valdai Discussion Club Analytical Report, 2012, p.6.
