To Resist the EU’s Bluff

Authors:

Timofei Bordachev
The author – Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, leading researcher at the Institute of Europe, RAS, director of the Centre for Applied Research Russia–EU, deputy editor-in-chief of the journal “Russia in Global Affairs”.

Russia in global affairs [1]

President of the European Commission (EC), José Manuel Durão Barroso, visited Moscow last Friday. Power engineering headed the list of the subjects under discussion. The July G8 summit in St. Petersburg is coming and energy relations occupy a highly important place on the Russian and European agenda. The second most important but not less important subject of the Moscow negotiations for the President of the EC was the modernization of political and legal base of Russia-EU relations, which up to now has been founded on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) expiring in 2007.

During the last three years, relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) have been developing steadily without any serious breakdowns concerning pragmatic assessment of the partner opportunities and perspectives. The consequences of the tense debate on the issue of Kaliningrad transit were successfully overcome, a number of important disagreements between Russia and the EU concerning peaceful settlement in the Chechen Republic were resolved. The protocol concluding bilateral negotiations on the Russian Federation’s accession to the WTO was signed in May, 2004. The Russia – EU energy dialog has been started between the two parties. At the same time, the expiration of the validity period of the PCA signed in 1994 and the recognition of the need to replace it, make the following year a period of active diplomatic cooperation and struggle for a new political and legal format of Russia-EU relations. During this struggle Russia will have an opportunity to confirm its ability to independently formulate and defend its position concerning the most important foreign affairs issues. In practice, Russian diplomacy, while occasionally showing determination on select, even though exclusively significant, questions, often gives up in the bureaucratic game so favored by Brussels. Unfortunately, Moscow sometimes fails to discern a set of the European Foreign Policy instruments in the elegant texts about joint plans to create “shared and united” space of economies, security and culture. Perhaps the problem lies in the insufficient human resources in the relevant Russian agencies. Russian policy also lacks public support, expertise and “intellectual intelligence” concerning the EU. The preparation of the new political and legislative format of relations with the EU will call for peak concentration of diplomatic and expert’s efforts. Especially, at the very time when Russia is more confident trying to strengthen its position as one of the leading world powers, while the European Union is experiencing its system crisis that began after the European Constitution was rejected in referenda by France and the Netherlands in 2005. It would be better for Russia not to attempt to formulate a bulky structure in the manner of the PCA expiring in 2007 or absolutely unreadable texts of Road maps for four common spaces that were approved at the summit in May, 2005. Instead, it would be a good idea to pass general and clear declaration with adjoined to it up to 15 sectoral agreements and dialogue agreements that have already been negotiated, for example, agreement on power engineering.

Though this Russian position is logical, we can predict with confidence that that such a stance will produce a discreet reaction on the part of Brussels. Then will follow statements, claiming that Russia is not interested in preparing a new agreement. However, when entering into negotiations with the EU, it is necessary to realize that insincerity and bluffing are natural instruments of the EC’s management of its affairs since, over time, it has been forced to defend its right to exist, struggling with national elites of member-states. Despite the surface gloss and mutual politeness, this struggle continues with the help of the strongest measures. This practice is considered to be absolutely normal for the EU and does not contradict the friendly and constructive character of relationships within the society. One of the latest examples is the recent dispute over the EU budged for 2007-2013. The rules of the struggle within the European Union are also extended on cooperation with outside partners. Thus, the European Commission (departments "Trade" and "Transport") conducted a dialogue with Russia for almost two years over transit air corridors over Siberia. But for all that, the European Commission asked the member-states for the juridical rights to conduct such negotiations only in February. In other words, Brussels has been misleading Russia during a couple of years and discussing the issue it had no right to discuss. The European Commission strictly links the issue of trans-Siberian flights with the Russia’s prospects to join the WTO. Thereby, European bureaucracy avows the possibility of recalling its signature of the bilateral agreement on the Russian Federation’s accession to the World Trade Organization. It’s essential to realize, that even partial revision of the terms of the WTO deal will lay foundation for the European Union to revise other issues, first of all in the sphere of power engineering, internal prices for Russian energy supply and access to transit pipelines built on Russian money. We have every reason to believe that if Russia yields now, the European Commission will put pressure upon the issue of Russian ratification of the agreement and the Energy Charter’s Transit Protocol, in conjunction with the Russia’s prospects to join the WTO. Taking into account such distinctive features of carrying on business by the European Commission, the statements of the European Union representatives that Russia has excessive demands should hardly confuse Russian negotiators. Such behavior would aim at delay, which EU needs to prepare its own version of the new agreement. At this point it is important for Russia not to relax alleging to languid EU reaction. The absence of diplomatic activity and dialogue in 2006 can cause a sudden appearance of the European Commission project by next spring or summer, which would be strongly supported by Germany, which will perform in the European Union the duties of the chair country since January till June, 2007. There is a risk that, in such succession of events Russian diplomacy will be able just to edit the EU version, accepting the replacement of the 1994 Agreement with a new wide-scale agreement, which will actually become a political instrument of the EU toward Russia. Russia can avoid it only by means of maintaining its own vision of the future political and legal relations with the European Union and providing this vision with a wide expert and public support. The big game is beginning.