Round The World

New Delhi, 19 June 2007

EU-Russian Ties Plummet

 By Monika Chansoria

School of International Studies, JNU

The altercations within Europe appear to be escalating at an alarming rate as the relations between the 27-nation European Union (EU) and Russia a turn for the worse. The variance of interests amongst Russia and one of the largest economic and political entities in the world exist at many levels. The recent past has witnessed Moscow and EU at loggerheads over a range of issues.

In what was viewed as an effort to resolve these issues, Germany, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, represented the bloc in the EU-Russian summit in last month in the south-western Russian city of Samara. The meeting was initiated to tone down the differences between the EU and Russia, but, on the contrary, ended with the differences becoming only more sharply defined. German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is also the European Council President and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to arrive at a consensus on a range of issues.

There was no progress on the trade and energy agreements, though the political differences surfaced and grabbed considerable attention. President Putin came under heavy criticism for keeping protesters from getting to the summit venue. The protestors included former world chess champion Garry Kasparov who had planned to fly to Samara, to lead a “March of Dissenters” against Putin’s rule.

Merkel expressed her concern over Kremlin’s attitude toward peaceful demonstrations and said, “Law enforcers have the right to use force and detain people if demonstrators turn violent and break windows… If a person hasn’t done anything and is just on their way to a demonstration this is a different matter.”

Indeed, Putin’s stature of being an “an impeccable democrat” as coined by former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder appears to be dwindling with Merkel standing her ground on human rights and the state of democracy in Russia. Commenting on the democracy debate, Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, suggested that Europe needed to alter its expectations to recognize that Russia’s model of democracy was not necessarily that of Europe or the US. “The transition to democracy in Russia is just over 15 years old, but we have had more changes in that time than other countries have had in 200 years,” he said.

The summit aimed at seeking to secure energy imports from Russia, that is EU’s third-largest trading partner after the US and China. The EU, with over 60 percent of foreign direct investment in Russia, is also the biggest investor in the country. In fact, Russia mainly exports oil and gas to Europe. Owing to the hike in crude oil prices (which are linked to gas prices in Europe) over the past years, Russia intends determined at flexing its muscles.

 Simultaneously, Russia strengthened its control over natural gas supplies from Central Asia by making an agreement with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on May 14, 2007 to build a pipeline that would transport their gas into Russia’s network of pipelines to Europe. The new deal undermines European and American aims to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia that would cross under the Caspian Sea, bypassing Russia, stemming concerns within EU over Russia’s increasing control of oil and natural gas supplies.

Moreover, Russia’s ban on imports on Polish agricultural products, as well as the Russian refusal to end an embargo on Polish farm exports, appears to have prompted Warsaw to retaliate against the Russian embargo by refusing to lift a veto that would allow negotiations over an EU-Russian partnership agreement governing trade, energy and human rights to continue. Russia, on its part, refused to sign the Energy Charter potentially becoming a crucial impediment for bilateral energy security.

Adding fuel to the fire came Estonia’s decision to remove a Soviet war memorial dedicated to the Soviet soldiers from a central square in capital city Tallinn, consequently leading to further escalation of tensions between EU and Moscow. Apparently, both Poland and Estonia had urged Germany to cancel the EU-Russian summit, a demand that was not agreed to by Germany.

The Estonian decision to remove the Soviet soldier’s sculpture from Tallinn and rebury the remains of Soviet troops at a cemetery instigated Russian-speaking young people in Tallinn and witnessed aggressive protest actions in front of the Estonian embassy in Moscow and the launch of a propaganda attack on Estonia.

Significantly, Lithuania too, has declared its support for Estonia and condemned Russia’s propaganda attacks against the country. In addition, a despondent Lithuanian reaction owing to the Russian decision to switch off an oil pipeline saw a further plunge in ties. In a show of solidarity with Estonia, the Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said that the conflict between Estonia and Russia was a lesson for the entire Europe and he believed that if similar events take place in other states, Estonia’s example would not allow the EU leaders to delay.

There was initial hope that the summit meeting would resolve the status of Kosovo, the Balkan province legally still part of Serbia but which has been under a UN protectorate since 1999. Russia vehemently continues to oppose a UN plan that would grant Kosovo independence, insisting that talks between Serbia and Kosovo be resumed before any new UN resolution is discussed. Crucially, Moscow failed to back an EU-supported agreement granting independence to the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

A German conservative daily Die Welt came down hard on Moscow and wrote, “…Kremlin is taking a hard line for itself and its interests in order to destabilize the Europeans, to weaken trans-Atlantic ties and to kill an EU security policy that is anchored in the US. Regarding Kosovo, which is a flashpoint in Europe, Moscow has become more Serbian than the Serbs…”

In addition to all these thorns, exacerbated EU-Russian ties could also be attributed to the potential reality of a US missile defence system being stationed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russian President Putin vehemently blamed the West for provoking a new arms race and threatened to target sites in Europe if Washington proceeded with the deployment of its anti-missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

Substantiating the rhetoric, Moscow went ahead and tested a strategic RS-24 MIRV intercontinental missile launched from the northeastern Arkhangelsk region. The warhead hit its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Pacific more than 3,700 miles away. The missile is reported to be proficient in overcoming any missile defense system the US may well put in place. The deteriorating relations were amply demonstrated when the summit failed to produce even a joint statement, sufficiently reflecting the divergences between the EU and Russia.

Thus, the strained ties between EU and Russia perceivably could work as a catalyst in introducing a whole new chapter to the existing crisis in Europe. Although it may be a bit too early to talk about a ‘New Cold War’, the signs surely are not encouraging and the string of controversies have set EU and Russia at odds that might just assume gigantic proportions in the future.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)