[A-List] EU-Russia alliance?

[Sabri Oncu]

Quentin Peel: Russia looks to its future role
The European Union should develop its ties with Russia, writes
Quentin Peel
Published: May 26 2002 20:34 | Last Updated: May 26 2002 20:34
Financial Times


There is nothing like a good old-fashioned summit in the Kremlin
between erstwhile superpower rivals, with a treaty on nuclear
missiles thrown in for good measure, to get the pundits excited.

That is what it has been like these past few days in Moscow. The
travelling circus was all over town. Only this time, the summit
between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin was almost like an
event in a time warp.

Scrapping nuclear weapons, even several thousand apiece, scarcely
seems dramatic any more. It amounts to little more than
recognition of their irrelevance. This summit between US and
Russian presidents was really just a footnote to history, a
belated move to bury the cold war long after it had been declared
dead. It was scarcely a breakthrough in international relations.

But there is another summit this week that matters potentially a
lot more: the meeting between Mr Putin and the leaders of the
European Union. It matters because talks between Russia and the
rest of Europe are about the future. A meeting between Russia and
America is primarily about the past.

Perhaps that sounds exaggerated. On the face of it, the Russia-EU
event does not look so important. They will probably spend most
of their time squabbling about the future of Kaliningrad, the
city that was once Königsberg, the proud capital of East Prussia.

Moscow wants visa-free travel for the inhabitants of what is now
a miserable Russian military enclave locked between Poland and
Lithuania. They are both set to join the EU, while Kaliningrad's
only claim to fame is that it has the highest incidence of Aids
in Europe. The EU is determined not to allow a visa-free corridor
through its future territory.

But Kaliningrad is a distraction. This meeting matters, not just
for Russia or for the EU but for global peace and stability.

Funnily enough, it was Mr Bush who put his finger on it in Berlin
last week. He spoke of the shared task, for America and Europe,
to "encourage the Russian people to find their future in Europe
and with America". Note the prepositions.

"Russia has its best chance since 1917 to become part of Europe's
family," he said. "A Russia at peace with its neighbours,
respecting the legitimate rights of minorities, is welcome in
Europe."

To Russian ears, those were welcome words. They may not have gone
down so well in western European capitals. Mr Bush does not seem
to have consulted anyone else before he spoke. His tone was
condescending. But he was perfectly right, at least in principle.

The future of Russia is as a regional power in Europe. That is
the main source and destination of its trade and its foreign
investment. Its cultural ties are with Europe. More than 60 per
cent of its international telephone calls go there.

Russia is a natural part of what Mikhail Gorbachev once called
the "common European home". It is time the leaders of the region
faced up to what that implies. Does it mean full membership of
the EU, with all its requirements for integration into a single
market, and a common foreign and defence policy? Or is it nothing
more than belonging to the Council of Europe, as a guarantor of
basic good behaviour? Or is it some half-way house called a
"single European economic space"?

In Moscow, opinion has shifted towards full EU membership. In an
opinion poll published by the Public Opinion Foundation a week
ago, 52 per cent of respond- ents were convinced that Russia must
seek EU membership, against 18 per cent who opposed it.

As for the leaders of the EU, they know it and they fear it. They
do not want to do too much about it. Their plates are full,
handling enlargement to take in a few small and medium-sized
countries in central and southern Europe. They are tying
themselves in knots trying to reform their own institutions to
avoid bureaucratic gridlock. The last thing they need is to
bother about how to accommodate a country with a population
larger than Germany and France put together and an economy
smaller than that of the Netherlands.

There are plenty of people in western Europe who think that the
enlargement currently being negotiated is already a step too far.
In France, most people oppose it. In Germany Edmund Stoiber, the
Bavarian prime minister and conservative presidential candidate,
is adamant that enlargement must be limited. He says Turkey
should not join, although it is an official candidate.

Yet the current enlargement will leave the EU with a host of
outstanding problems - mostly on its eastern borders. It is in
danger of creating a new Iron Curtain, or a curtain of poverty,
along the western borders of Belarus and Ukraine. If Turkey is
seem as a genuine candidate for membership, can the EU really say
no to Kiev - or to Moscow?

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party in the
Russian Duma, the parliament, is grateful to Mr Bush. "The door
to Europe is in Washington," he says. "He has to give his
sanction."

He is both cautious and optimistic. "We have only one way forward
if we want to be stable, secure and without threat," he says.
"That is to be a full member of the European club - in 20 years
from now. What form it takes we can discuss."

Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, is
also convinced that Mr Putin has cast his die. "There is no
Eurasia to go back to. With the EU arriving in Warsaw, and
eventually in Kiev, there must be a place for Russia in that
Europe. This is where Russia is moving."

That is the subtext of the EU-Russia summit this week. Russia
wants an ever-closer relationship. The EU is nervous about how it
may look. What is needed is an idea about whether it is realistic
to think of Russia as a full union member at some stage; then, a
strategy on how to get there.

The idea of a "common economic space" has been propounded but
without real content. It should include both a free trade area
and a customs union. The former would underpin trade flows in
both directions. The latter would help Russia overhaul its
corrupt and inefficient customs services.

At the same time, Russia is keen to be more closely involved with
the EU's common foreign and security policy. That could grow
naturally out of the closer integration of Russia and Nato, to be
agreed in Rome tomorrow.

With quicker economic integration, the prospect of eventual
membership might not seem so alarming. But it might worry the man
who seems most relaxed about it: Mr Bush.

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