The European Union, Russia and the Shared Neighbourhood

Jackie Gower,Graham Timmins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317985822
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The conflict in South Ossetia in the summer of 2008 and the Ukrainian energy crisis in early 2009 served to highlight the tensions that continue to influence EU-Russia relations in regard to the region comprising the former republics of the Soviet Union or the 'shared neighbourhood'.

This book draws together research which examines the objectives of EU and Russian foreign policy and the complexities of the security challenges in this region. Although both actors have a shared interest in cooperating to create conditions of peace and stability, we have in recent years observed the development of growing competition between the EU and Russian foreign policy agendas.

This book was based on a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

Introduction: The European Union, Russia and the Shared Neighbourhood

JACKIE GOWER & GRAHAM TIMMINS

THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) AND RUSSIA’S ‘shared neighbourhood’ of Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia was, according to Löwenhardt, writing in 2005, ‘an economic and diplomatic battlefield’ (Löwenhardt 2005, p. 7). The period that has followed has seen this agenda develop into a mainstream political debate on the prospects for European security and spill over into the military domain with the conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008. This conflict and the Ukrainian energy crisis in January 2009 have contributed to the generation of a new post-Cold War low point in EU–Russia relations.

Apart from the frozen conflicts scattered around the region, it was not until the creation of the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), initially outlined in 2003, that attention began to focus on the states comprising the shared neighbourhood. The ENP was a strategy designed to extend a European zone of peace and stability eastwards, and it came in response to the imminent enlargement of the EU’s membership into Central and Eastern Europe in 2004. The ENP was considered an essential step forward in establishing stable relations with its new neighbours, but, as Haukkala has argued, Russia’s self-exclusion from the ENP has had the effect of creating a competitive agenda between the two actors (Haukkala 2008, p. 38), and has failed to create the positive political dynamics that were intended. The launch of the ENP had coincided with the re-election of Vladimir Putin as Russian President and the projection of a more assertive Russian foreign policy agenda. Russia had failed to prop up the Shevardnadze regime and to prevent the Saakashvilli government coming to power in Georgia’s ‘Rose Revolution’ in autumn 2003, and had likewise failed to divert the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine which brought the more pro-Western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, to power after the original elections in December 2004 were declared void. The view from Moscow towards the ENP and the very concept of a shared neighbourhood was thus increasingly driven by the perception of a threat from Western encroachment into what Russia considered to be its traditional sphere of influence.

Where the states in the region are themselves concerned, there is an obvious tension between, on the one hand, the attractions of a pro-Western agenda which promises aid, technical assistance and eventual integration into the single European market if not membership, and which would have positive benefits for trade and investment, and on the other hand, cooperation with Moscow given their dependency on Russian energy supplies, as well as the cultural and historical affinities that many of the states share with Russia.

Although both the EU and Russia have a common interest in regional stability, what we have seen in recent years is the gradual re-emergence of zero-sum calculations and geopolitical competition. It cannot come as any real surprise that both the EU and Russia have expressed an interest in the shared neighbourhood given the geographical location of the region, and Trenin is correct in his assertion that the tensions we are currently witnessing do not necessarily translate into old-style Cold War conflict. What, however, is clearly the case is that the ‘overall state of EU–Russia relations will be a key variable in the future development of the countries that lie between them’ (Trenin 2005). The common space on external security created by the EU and Russia in 2005 has so far failed to produce tangible results, and it remains to be seen whether the Eastern Partnership, launched in May 2009, will provide a more productive framework for political agreement on regional cooperation and stability, and whether strengthening the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours will facilitate improvements in the EU–Russia political relationship. As the Polish Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, has argued,

If we see Russia’s future as being in partnership with the European Union, we cannot deny the same prospect to the people of the countries that make up the joint neighbourhoods of both. It would be a poor solution for the EU and Russia to be separated by a region whose contacts with Europe are less substantial than those it has with Russia. (Sikorski 2009, p. 41)

The contributions to this collection have emerged out of a series of academic activities convened by the EU–Russia Joint Research Network during the 2008–2009 academic session, an initiative which has been joint funded by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) and the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES).

Derek Averre provides the opening contribution with an examination of the competing rationalities of Russian and EU foreign policy in the shared neighbourhood, and argues that there is a deep-rooted incompatibility between the EU’s use of post-modern, normative power and Russia’s use of modern, structural power, an incompatibility which sets out a range of complex challenges in developing any tangible meaning to the concept of ‘strategic partnership’ between the two actors. Stefan Gänzle’s examination of the EU’s security governance strategy towards its eastern neighbours suggests that the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) employed by the EU comprises a dynamic which ultimately will bring some neighbouring countries closer to EU membership. Martin Dangerfield’s evaluation of the internal dynamics of the EU’s eastern policy-making, and the specific contribution made by the ‘Visegrad Group’, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, argues that there is mixed evidence regarding the extent to which these states have been able to influence the development and projection of the EU’s eastern policy, and the newly-established Eastern Partnership in particular.

Three contributions focus on the development of EU–Russia relations. Hiski Haukkala provides a discussion of why the EU has failed to influence Russia’s development, and argues that situational characteristics have forced the Union into some rather difficult trade-offs between securing its normative agenda and developing a relationship with the at times turbulent and unpredictable Russia. Rick Fawn discusses the human rights dialogue between the EU and Russia, and contends that human rights have taken an instrumental dimension in relations between post-Soviet states, in particular the Russian Federation, and several of the post-communist states that achieved membership of the EU and NATO. Tuomas Forsberg and Antti Seppo consider the EU–Russia relationship from the perspective of recent trade disputes and assert that although the lack of unity has been a very common explanation for the failures of the EU foreign policy, the poor success in solving these disputes cannot be explained purely in these terms and requires a broader debate regarding the contextual nature of power resources which highlights the dependence of the EU on Russia’s energy resources. Finally, Mikhail Filippov looks at the Georgian crisis of 2008, and suggests that Moscow’s strategy has been rooted in an attempt to create diversionary conflicts in the region, which are intended to disrupt the perusal of a Western agenda by the states concerned.

The editors wish to acknowledge and thank BASEES and UACES for their generous financial support which enabled this collection of essays to be developed, the contributors for their efforts in producing such an impressive collection of academic research essays, the reviewers for their assistance in the editorial process and, in particular, Terry Cox and Sarah Lennon for their support and seemingly unlimited patience in guiding this project through to completion.

References

Haukkala, H. (2008) ‘The Russian Challenge to EU Normative Power: The Case of the European Neighbourhood Policy’, The International Spectator, 43, 2.

Löwenhardt, J. (2005) Stuck in the Middle: The Shared Neighbourhood of the EU and Russia, 2000–2005 (The Hague, Netherlands Institute of International Relations).

Sikorski, R. (2009) ‘The EU’s “Eastern Partnership” is the Key to Relations with Russia’, Europe’s World, 12, Summer.

Trenin, D. (2005) Russia, The EU and the Common Neighbourhood (London, Centre for European Reform), September, available at: http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/essay_russia_trenin_sept05.pdf, accessed 21 August 2009.

Competing Rationalities: Russia, the EU and the ‘Shared Neighbourhood’

DEREK AVERRE

THE FOLLOWING ASSESSMENT BY AUTHORITATIVE Russian commentators sums up what has in recent years become accepted thinking about the EU and Russia:

The officially declared aim of relations is strategic partnership. However, the current conceptual vacuum and level of competition, and even rivalry, means that … this aim cannot bring relations in line with the long-term needs of the two sides in the dynamic world of the future.

They conclude that, with Russia having taken a different path from the liberal-democratic evolution chosen by Central and Eastern European countries, it is not clear what model of relations Moscow and Brussels should be aiming for (Karaganov & Yurgens 2008, p. 4). Their diverging positions are manifested not only in the increasing difficulties in their bilateral relationship but also in their approaches to the shared neighbourhood. In particular, the conflict between Russia and Georgia over the separatist region of South Ossetia in August 2008—and the criticism by the EU and many of its member states of Moscow’s disproportionate reaction and its recognition of South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence—only indicated the shallowness of the putative ‘strategic partnership’. Indeed, it led to the conclusion in Brussels that ‘relations between the EU and Russia have reached a crossroads’.¹

The term ‘shared neighbourhood’ has primarily been used to denote the Soviet successor states covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and now by the recently launched Eastern Partnership—Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the countries of the South Caucasus. However, with the adoption by Brussels of the Strategy for a New Partnership with Central Asia in June 2007—which ‘strengthens the perception of the EU as a political and even strategic actor in the region’ (Kassenova 2008, p. 2)—and the appointment of an EU Special Representative with an ambitious remit covering political, governance and energy issues, the first tentative steps have been taken to cement the neighbourhood approach (albeit at present without the array of instruments and incentives offered by the ENP) in the five states of Central Asia.

The divergence between the EU’s and Russia’s policies towards the shared neighbourhood is often framed as follows. The EU seeks to extend a European ‘postmodern’ security community across the wider Europe and create a ‘ring of well governed countries’ to the east, without offering them the prospect of accession. This is done through trade and assistance programmes to encourage the maximum possible convergence with European norms and values, notably good political and economic governance and the rule of law (Haukkala 2008a; Emerson 2003; Vahl 2006). This idea was present in both the ENP and the European Security Strategy,² and reinforced in the European Commission’s Communication on the Eastern Partnership.³ The EU approach involves the exercise of what has been, in a quite extensive literature, variously called normative power, civilian power or, as external relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has phrased it, ‘“soft and smart power” to project security and create prosperity’ (Ferrero-Waldner 2008). Russia, on the other hand, is often perceived as seeking to maintain or recreate a traditional, realist ‘sphere of influence’ by manipulating a range of hard and soft instruments to exploit its predominant structural power in the post-Soviet space. As a prominent Russian commentator has put it:

Due to differences in political culture, Russians find it very difficult to understand the complex post-modernist logic which Europe declares … for Russia, this is the traditional understanding of force, based on economic and military–political levers; whereas for the European Union, it is soft power used to expand the European legal space and make the European model more attractive to neighbouring countries. (Lukyanov 2008, p. 1114)

Until recently at least, Moscow has relied heavily on non-military instruments to reinforce its influence—‘If not by tanks, then by banks’ (Tsygankov 2006). The extensive use of military force by Moscow in the conflict with Georgia, which culminated in the stationing of a Russian military presence in ‘newly independent’ South Ossetia and Abkhazia, has left scholars and analysts debating whether Russia’s intervention was the first move in a new revisionist regional strategy:

Two quite contrary narratives are in circulation. On the one hand, Russia claims that its operation and subsequent security measures in Georgia have been sui generis and essentially retaliatory—an ad hoc, exceptional, though large-scale response to a Georgian attack in South Ossetia. Critics of Moscow’s offensive argue, on the other hand, that Russia’s ostensible commitment to protect ‘Russian citizens’, a core justification of the intervention in Georgia, has principally served as a means of coercion and a device to expedite military intervention in that country for other strategic purposes … the question arises whether there is a new determination in the Kremlin to use military power in a more open-ended way as an instrument of policy to enforce compliance by neighbour states and assert Russia’s ‘regional superpower’ status, as Russia considers befits its rising status and influence in the global system. (Allison 2008, p. 1169)

Insofar as Russian foreign policy is seen as having normative content at all—in terms of how domestic political culture and Russian ideas about the international system are translated into its external relations—it is presented as being rooted in ‘great power’ norms redolent of the ‘modern’ era which are incompatible with the EU’s (Tulmets 2007, p. 207), and arguably the broader liberal-democratic international community’s, emphasis on freedom of choice, evolution towards democratic law, and human rights-based governance. According to one commentator, ‘the enlargement of the EU, initially perceived as an objective process in the development of post-bipolar Europe, is today more and more often seen by many in Russia as a source of new challenges [linked with] rivalry in the post-Soviet space’ (Arbatova 2006, pp. 15–16). A leading Russian analyst has concluded that ‘Russia stays out of what Europe regards as the mainstream tendencies in the region and, alone among Europe’s partners, seeks to present an alternative to that mainstream’ (Trenin 2008, p. 135).

This essay suggests that the approaches of the EU and Russia to the shared neighbourhood lend themselves to a more subtle interpretation. The ‘competing rationalities’ of the title refer not, or not just, to the incompatible logics of EU ‘postmodern’ or normative power and Russian ‘modern’ or structural power—with the conflict this incompatibility generates—but to the tension between elements of normative and structural power in the relations of both with the countries on their periphery. While a number of scholars have examined the ideas of normative and structural power as a conceptual framework for understanding how the EU makes foreign and security policy (Manners 2002, 2006a, 2008; Diez 2005; Hyde-Price 2008; Zielonka 2008; Smith 2007), there has been much less work on Russia from this point of view.⁴

In this essay we first examine the concepts of normative and structural power and go on to look at the development of the EU’s and Russia’s policies towards the shared neighbourhood over the recent period—roughly from the time the ENP was introduced, when difficulties in the EU–Russia relationship became more apparent. We first consider aspects of normative power in both the EU’s and Russia’s approaches to their neighbours and ask to what extent there are prospects for normative convergence. We then explore the extent to which they exercise structural power in regions made up of states undergoing uncertain and quite diverse trajectories of development. The conflict between the idea of the EU as a normative power and the material impact of its policies, and how this might shape relations with Russia, are considered. Finally, we assess the prospects for a common response to governance and security challenges in the shared neighbourhood.

Power and norms in the shared neighbourhood

An immediate problem arises in defining power. Hard power is usually taken to mean the coercive use of military and economic might; soft power works more through persuasion and rests on the attractiveness and legitimacy of ideas, political culture and economic and social models (Tulmets 2008); civilian power and normative power both incorporate much inherent in soft power, but the former focuses on the ap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: The European Union, Russia and the Shared Neighbourhood
• 2. Competing Rationalities: Russia, the EU and the ‘Shared Neighbourhood’
• 3. EU Governance and the European Neighbourhood Policy: A Framework for Analysis
• 4. The Contribution of the Visegrad Group to the European Union’s ‘Eastern’ Policy: Rhetoric or Reality?
• 5. Lost in Translation? Why the EU has Failed to Influence Russia’s Development
• 6. ‘Bashing about Rights’? Russia and the ‘New’ EU States on Human Rights and Democracy Promotion
• 7. Power without Influence? The EU and Trade Disputes with Russia
• 8. Diversionary Role of the Georgia–Russia Conflict: International Constraints and Domestic Appeal
• Index