Written submission from Serena Giusti, Assistant Professor and researcher working at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (University) in Pisa

The EU-Russia Relations: better to reengage

In considering relations between the Euro-Atlantic community and the Russia Federation, we should not commit the grave mistake of identifying an entire country with its leadership. Russia is not a monolithic nation and people have different perceptions, views and positions regarding both domestic and global politics. The Russians’ vision of the world and of the place their country should deserve in the international system might diverge from that elaborated by the Kremlin. It is therefore important to keep in mind that condemning the leadership of that country might be perceive as the blaming of or an entire nation. This is particularly true in Russia where foreign policy is one of the less controversial and divisive policies. Those who are unsympathetic toward Putin’s regime hardly assume a critical stance on the management of external relations. Patriotism, enthused by foreign ‘denigration’, helps overcoming political divisions and inhibits opposition.

In addition, on the basis of recent induced regime changes, the question of stability is not be underestimated in particular as far as a big size country as Russia is concerned. Nationality conflicts may still easily erupt there and overspill outside the national borders. Furthermore, Islamist proselytism of Russian Muslims has increased since the fighting against Assad began in Syria. These Muslim groups could be tempted to exploit any breach in the Russian system of power. After Putin’s invasion of Crimea, Islamist leaders called all Muslims to jihad against Russia. So, any move from the West should be assessed, among others, in terms of its effect on Russia’s stability.

The economic sanctions applied by the US and the EU in response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and to the acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces in the Ukrainian Eastern Southern regions are not ‘smart sanctions’. They will impact on the economy of the country and affect all Russians who are already suffering from the neat contraction of GDP. The weakening global price of oil and the US shale gas developments have additional negative implications. It is too risky hoping that a change in the political system of Russia can be set in motion from below as result of an increasing number of discontented citizens. Furthermore, transformations do not automatically result in democratic regimes especially in context where political culture is distant from the one developed in the West. On the contrary, economic backwards can rather cause a mounting nationalism and a ‘rally around the flag’ behaviour.

The sanctions have so far proved very costly also for the EU members (European companies have been comprehensively hostile, this might downgrade their attitude towards the EU) due to the deep economic interdependency (Russia has become the third trading partner of the EU and the EU is the first trading partner of Russia). Russia has already strengthened economic relations with China and a reversion of trade towards Beijing could be irreversible. But above all, sanctions will make it very difficult for the EU and the US to reengage Russia. 

The EU position towards Russia  

Although the EU is supposedly entitled to project power toward its neighbourhood – motivated by the idea of spreading democracy and Europeanizing the closest outsiders – it should however consider more seriously the reactions of the other stakeholders in the region. The influence over the Post-Soviet space is one of the top priorities of Russia’s foreign policy, and the Kremlin has an ample spectrum of means (from soft to hard power) to strengthen its leverage in the region. As a result the region is subject to competitive and conflicting pressures.

At least to a certain extent, then, the consequences of the EU’s East-bound policies could be predicted – despite the sudden twist in Russia’s attitude – since both actors have been seeking to secure their influence in the area advancing the institutionalization of their infra-regional relations – though based on different sets of fundamental values – and the EU’s plan to reinforce its influence in the Eastern Neighborhood was in fact bound to collide with the counter-project sponsored by Moscow.

All this leads to the question if offering the Association Agreement to Ukraine in November 2013 was the right move at right time. Obviously, the EU offer was legitimate but some would argue that probably it was not politically reasonable knowing that Russia would have not digested it smoothly and that Ukraine was not only a divided country but also politically frail. This is not to justify Russia’s annexation of Crimea or its backing separatists in the Eastern Ukraine but to recall EU’s leadership on the costs of a choice. Did the EU expect such a turmoil in Ukraine? Had the EU a plan to face up an eventual military reaction by Russia? It is quite likely that the EU did not expected the Ukrainian refusal and the consequent changes. Until late 2013, Brussels had considered Ukraine as an example of its successful transformative power. That country-model should have been later emulated by the other Eastern Partnership (EaP) states and thus it was supposed to spread EU standards and render the eastern EU rim stable, predictable and similar to the EU members.

Once the crisis pumped-up with the violent protests of Maidan square, the EU was entrapped in a sort of path dependency approach. Once more, the EU was reactive and not proactive and unable to disconnect decisions which are legitimate and aligned with the EaP’s goals from the consequences they might have produced. As the former Ukrainian President V. Yanukovich was removed from power, the EU returned in fact to its initial offer - the Association Agreement – without recalibrating its strategy.

The post-Maidan EU’s policy was the result of a ‘technocratic’ pathway already established by the institutions which acted in the vacuum of politics. The EU’s governments remained either unresponsive or divided on a common strategy. The EU reaction derived from inertia rather than from an accurate analysis of the situation. The EU’s bureaucracy overtook politics. The EU failed to come up with a strategy for Ukraine.

The proof is that the only real answer was the signature of the Association Agreement in two different phases. The Association Agreement is very demanding for a country still unsteady and in a deep economic crisis, where central government is not yet able to control the whole territory. Then again the question is: was the right moment for Ukraine to subscribe that controversial and challenging agreement?

Re-engaging

We believe that re-engaging Russia is the only root to take for avoiding post-Soviet space becomes a conflictual arena where the West and Russia antagonize. Confrontation is neither beneficial for the EU nor for the Kremlin. It is threatening the world order in a moment where those actors should rather coalesce to deal with a number of menaces. The EU is rightly pressing for a diplomatic solution in the Ukraine’s conflict.

The EU should also find other avenues to recuperate and revitalize the relationship with Moscow. In this perspective the reactivation of the Partnership for Modernization (PfM) launched during the Rostov-on-Don summit (May 31 - June 1, 2010) should be considered. The PfM was presented as a common modernization agenda to advance the EU and Russian economies and to bring their citizens closer. The PfM is primarily a flexible framework for prompting reforms, enhancing growth and raising competitiveness (among the priority areas: innovation, medium-sized enterprises; the alignment of technical regulations and standards, intellectual property rights). The implementation of the activities entails the involvement of various actors – institutional and private – with both an economic-financial craft and a political mission. In comparison with other programs of co-operation put forward by the EU, the PfM is more open to the involvement of informal actors and better suited to blurring the boundaries between the public and private spheres. The PfM is aimed at prompting a progressive convergence and homogenization between EU and Russia and a multilevel cooperation that instead has remained quite unexploited.

The PfM is based on an equal partnership, as Moscow has always pressed for, previously refusing for instance, to take part in the European Neighbourhood Policy. The partnership was based, on the one hand, on Russia’s desire for external investment and partnerships in order to accomplish its modernization mission and, on the other hand, on the EU’s hope of improving economic relations and creating better opportunities for European companies and, as a ‘non-deliberate’ outcome, of upgrading the quality of democracy in the country.

The so-called sectoral dialogues have been regarded as main tools for the accomplishment of the PfM, which will be implemented through a broad range of pioneering tools re-sponding to an inductive and fluid approach encompassing the traditional means applied to other European programs. The logic of the PfM is to select platforms of collaboration within the areas of EU-Russian common spaces, meeting the interests of the actors involved, which generate multilevel-linkages and multi-issues cooperation. The tools of the PfM are not regulated by the principle of conditionality but rather inspired by the processes of learning and persuasion and co-ownership. This is forged on a lesson-drawing model that relies on a voluntary transfer based on a cost-benefit calculation that, by definition, does not include direct rewards from the EU, but only expected benefits deriving from the adoption of a set of rules, which is considered to be more efficient and beneficial. The soft tools of the PfM have the merit of engaging Russia formally (institutional actors) and informally (non-institutional actors) so that Russia does not fear external interference in its domestic politics. The PfM’s procedures make it possible to speed up negotiations that might otherwise stall if legally binding commitments were sought at a time when it is not convenient for negotiating parties to make major commitments at a certain point in time for political and/or economic reasons, but they still wish to negotiate something in good faith in the meantime and involve a larger number of different actors.

We do believe that the PfM is a good template on how the EU-Russia relations can be improved. There are other topics worth to be considered for cooperation: pan-European security (see the Pan-European security plan proposed by President Medved in June 2008), the governance and management of the Arctic region (a “win-win” region, where international cooperation proved to be efficient in past years); the creation of a common Eurasian economic space, which would spread from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

October 2014

1