marti si miercuri am fost la berlin. o cina si workshop organizat de german marshal fund despre vecinii din est. mai jos gasiti punctele de reper din prezentarea mea. nu tocmai coerente.

dupa berlin am luat trenul la praga. 6 ore si jumatate. singur in compartiment. aveau si prize. de mult nu am mai avut 6 ore de calm – fara net, telefon si lume in jur. am lucrat foarte productiv. era ca un oficiu mobil. pacat ca nu am apuc sa circul mai des cu trenul :) la praga (a treia oara in 3 luni-din cauza presedintiei cehe). iarasi adunarea boardului pasos, si o intalnire cu niste diplomati cehi despre parteneriatul estic. acum astept masina spre aeroport.

Towards a New Ostpolitik?

GMF Brainstorm

Berlin, 20 January 2008

  • EU and the neighbourhood are deeply interdependent. Problems in the neighbourhood have huge spillover effects for the EU: they can undermine trust and solidarity between EU member states, worsen relations between the EU, Russia and the neighbours themselves (see the August 2008 war or the January 2009 gas crisis), affects energy security.

  • The multitude of initiatives on the neighbourhood – Wider Europe, ENP, ENP Plus, Black Sea Synergy, New Ostpolitik, Eastern Partnership – just suggest how dissatisfied the EU is with its policy in the East. Almost every year there is an effort to upgrade it.

  • ENP is using enlargement instruments, without an accession perspective. ENP is designed as an “enlargement minus” policy. It focuses on long-term structural change, imposes EU priorities such as the extension of the acquis. However in enlargement the adoption of the acquis was non-negotiable, and EU power hugely asymmetric. This is not working in the East.

  • The environment in the Eastern neighbourhood is different from Central Europe for two reasons. 1) The EU is not the only game in town, as it was in Central Europe and is now in the Balkans. Russia is a much bigger factor. 2) And the neighbourhood is crisis prone, which makes it almost impossible for ENP to take root.

  • Russia has a neighbourhood policy of its own. It is sometimes effective, sometimes not, but it significantly undermines ENP objectives, such as democracy promotion, conflict-resolution or transparency in energy deals.
    • Russia uses hard power: military presence in every single country of the eastern neighbourhood, economic embargoes and coercion.
    • But Russia also uses soft power. Some of it is residual, such as media domination in the CIS, the role of the Russian Orthodox Church, or some post-soviet nostalgia.
    • But much of it is new. Russia invests in new media, internet, NGOs, political parties in neighbouring states. It also plays domestic politics, finances political technologists and campaigns.
    • “Sovereign democracy”, but in fact openly authoritarian rule, is attractive as a model in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus. Many, if not most instruments of authoritarian control – administrative pressures and harassment of NGOs, media and political parties – are replicated across the region, including in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

  • Partly because of the Russian neighbourhood policy, partly because of the political instabilities in the eastern neighbourhood countries themselves, the whole region is very crisis-prone. In addition to big events such as the war in Georgia, and the Ukraine-Russia gas crisis, the whole region is in a near-permanent state of crises – security, political or economic.
  • Neighbourhood governments are in fire-fighting regime, and have no time for the long-term priorities of the ENP. The technical, incremental and long-term focus of the ENP simply has no time too take root. When countries fight wars, face wars, or are hit by economic crisis, adoption of the acquis and twinning programs with the EU are from being key priorities.
  • Neighbourhood governments are fire-fighters – unsure of when and how they will put down the fire, have no tome to think about a prospect that is too distant and unsure. ENP is offering advanced engineering solution. But they fire-fighters have no time to think long term, before putting down the fire.

  • There is growing mutual disappointment between the EU and its neighbours. The EU is increasingly disappointed by its former darlings in the east: Ukraine’s failures on energy and democratisation, Georgia’s increasing authoritarianism and brinkmanship on the conflicts, as well as the August 2008 war; Moldova’s increasingly authoritarian government.

  • But neighbours are also increasingly disappointed with the EU: Georgia – by EU’s moral failure to forcefully intervene during the war with Russia. Ukraine is speaking about the fact that it is squeezed in between Gazprom and … Gazprom, i.e. European energy companies such as Eon, Gaz de France, SPP that are close to Gazprom.