Friend or foe, or something uneasily in between? That's the question Europe is asking about Russia, and Russia about a newly aggressive Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin's choice of Dmitri Medvedev, chairman of Gazprom, the gas company with an emerging stranglehold on European energy supplies, only throws this question into an even starker light.
Relations between Europe and Russia have been deteriorating for several years, but once manageable economic issues, including energy, are now being aggravated by much more volatile political differences. The risk is a climate of undisguised hostility, with potentially greater costs than during the nadir of the Cold War.
The most obvious and imminent flashpoint is Kosovo. The likelihood is that early next year most of the EU's member nations will recognize the Albanian-majority enclave on Serbia's southern edge as an independent state. This is certain to inflame not just Serbia, but also the Kremlin.
Then there are rising tensions over plans by the US to base a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as the growing likelihood that further NATO enlargement will include Georgia, the increasingly prosperous neighbor with which Russia has fractious relations. Russia continues to fan secessionist flames there by encouraging the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Tempers are rising in both Russia and Europe, yet paradoxically, when it comes to the major challenges they face, their interests are largely identical.
Both are threatened by Islamic extremism and growing unrest. Both have much to lose if the Middle East erupts into fresh violence. And both face serious demographic problems, given shrinking and aging populations, as well as the challenge of Asia's rising superpowers.
The breakdown in relations has been gradual and undramatic -- more a morose and resentful refusal to see each other's point of view than a succession of rows. This owes much to the humiliations that Russia suffered when the end of communism forced its economy to its knees, and to Western short-sightedness about Russia's fundamental strengths and resilience.
The EU is as much to blame as the Kremlin. In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, neither EU nor European national policymakers have devised a coherent strategy setting out the relationship that Europe wants with the Russian Federation.
Today, it is more important than ever that the EU, which now includes not only former Soviet satellites but countries that were part of the USSR, should create a strategic policy framework. This reflects not only worries about energy and shared security concerns, but also the need to head off any looming crisis in the Middle East that could plunge large parts of the world into turmoil, if not armed conflict.
There, and in the volatile Caucasus, a significant improvement in Europe's relations with Russia is crucial to defusing tensions. For its part, Europe needs to mount a charm offensive to persuade Putin and Medvedev that Russia's real interest is in improving bilateral relations. Russia needs to collaborate on energy in ways that bring genuine security. In the Middle East, it needs to persuade Iran to hold in check the military elements of the nuclear program that Russia has made possible.
None of this will be easy, not only because Europe's relationship with Russia has grown so chilly, but also because Putin is understood to despise the EU as politically impotent. Russian leaders may have misinterpreted as a sign of weakness Europe's representation at last month's EU-Russia summit by two Portuguese -- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose government currently holds the revolving EU presidency.
Most telling in Russian eyes has been competition within the EU for oil and gas contracts, which has done much to convince the Kremlin that Europe is not a political force to be reckoned with.
On the European side, engineering a new spirit of detente will be tough. There is widespread disapproval of Putin's autocratic style and of his government's human rights record. Extending an olive branch to Russia will have little or no voter appeal in most EU countries, and Putin's efforts to retain power -- de facto if not de jure -- after Medvedev wins his likely victory next March are certain to make matters worse.
The question, therefore, is whether Europe and Russia can establish a new framework for talking to one another. There are plenty of well-worn diplomatic paths, so it's not structures that are lacking. What's needed is a more positive frame of mind, and specific ideas about what to do.
Giles Merritt is secretary-general of Friends of Europe and editor of the policy journal Europe's World.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Europe's World
In a stark reminder of China’s persistent territorial overreach, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, a woman from Arunachal Pradesh holding an Indian passport, was detained for 18 hours at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Nov. 24 last year. Chinese immigration officials allegedly informed her that her passport was “invalid” because she was “Chinese,” refusing to recognize her Indian citizenship and claiming Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. Officials had insisted that Thongdok, an Indian-origin UK resident traveling for a conference, was not Indian despite her valid documents. India lodged a strong diplomatic protest, summoning the Chinese charge d’affaires in Delhi and demanding
Immediately after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “Justice Mission” exercise at the end of last year, a question was posed to Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal regarding recent developments involving the exercises around Taiwan, and how he viewed their impact on regional peace and stability. His answer was somewhat perplexing to me as a curious student of Taiwanese affairs. “India closely follows developments across the Indo-Pacific region,” he said, adding: “We have an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region, in view of our significant trade, economic, people-to-people, and maritime interests. We urge all concerned
In the past 72 hours, US Senators Roger Wicker, Dan Sullivan and Ruben Gallego took to social media to publicly rebuke the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the defense budget. I understand that Taiwan’s head is on the chopping block, and the urgency of its security situation cannot be overstated. However, the comments from Wicker, Sullivan and Gallego suggest they have fallen victim to a sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by an administration in Taipei that treats national security as a partisan weapon. The narrative fed to our allies claims the opposition is slashing the defense budget to kowtow to the Chinese
In a Taipei Times editorial published almost three years ago (“Macron goes off-piste,” April 13, 2023, page 8), French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for comments he made immediately after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. Macron had spoken of the need for his country to find a path on Chinese foreign policy no longer aligned with that of the US, saying that continuing to follow the US agenda would sacrifice the EU’s strategic autonomy. At the time, Macron was criticized for gifting Xi a PR coup, and the editorial said that he had been “persuaded to run
RSS