Archive for category Eastern partnership

A Swedish-led listening tour of the East

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, EU, Europe (un)divided, Moldova, Russia, South Caucasus on June 22, 2009

The Swedish EU presidency, which starts on 1 July 2009, is getting a lot of advice on what to do during its presidency. But here is one idea more idea for the Swedish EU presidency (contained in our recent ECFR report on the Eastern neighbourhood). The Swedish Presidency should convene a “listening tour” of the Eastern neighbourhood – a Troika visit by the Swedish foreign minister, Javier Solana, the Commissioner for External Relations, and the future Spanish EU presidency to each of the six Eastern neighbours of the EU: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia). Here is why such a tour is needed and why the Swedish presidency is the best actor to initiate it.

To begin with, the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague, judged by its attendance list, was a near-failure. If the objective of the Eastern partnership was to relaunch the neighbourhood policy and raise its political profile, its start was not impressive. The Swedish presidency-led “listening tour” would help relaunch politically the neighbourhood policy in the East. It would repair some of the political damage done by the unimpressive Eastern partnership summit in May 2009. But the purpose of such a tour should not only be symbolic. Read the rest of this entry »

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The foreign-policy solidarity gap

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, Europe (un)divided on May 29, 2009

Complaints about an imbalance in the levels of EU engagement in the Southern neighbourhood compared to the Eastern neighbourhood are wide-spread. The new EU member states like to point to the  fact that EU funding for the Mediterranean neighbours is much bigger than for the Eastern neighbours; and EU diplomatic engagement in the Middle Eastern conflicts (be it the Israeli-Palestine conflict or Lebanon) has been much less shy than in the post-Soviet space.

But Southern EU member states also have their grudges. The Portuguese EU presidency in 2007 gave a sense of it. Many in Portugal think (and here) that the EU has spent almost twenty years cajoling and baby-sitting the Eastern neighbours of the day (beginning with Central Europe which is already in the EU, and then the Balkans), and now it is time to turn to the South where a “new” generation of threats such as terrorism, migration and conflicts are threatening Europe.

Two recent EU summits with their neighbours provide a good snapshot of the balance of priorities and the foreign policy solidarity gap: the July 2008 summit of the Union of Mediteranean in Paris and the May 2009 summit of the Eastern Partnership in Prague. Read the rest of this entry »

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New priorities in Georgia and Moldova

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, Moldova, secessionist conflicts, South Caucasus on May 18, 2009

As Moldova and Georgia are plunging into political crisis, increasing polarisation, and growing tensions between the government and opposition EU’s priorities in these countries suddenly look different than a few months ago. This is clearly captured by what the EU special representatives (EUSR) to these countries are doing. If EU special representatives for South Caucasus and Moldova were appointed (in 2003 and 2005 respectively) to deal primarily with secessionist conflicts, now they have to deal primarily with domestic political crises.

When Georgia plunged into crisis in November 2007, Peter Semneby, EUSR for South Caucasus, flew immediately to Tbilisi and sought to diffuse the crisis by mediating between government and opposition. As the opposition launched again a series to rallies to unseat president Saakashvili less than two months ago, Peter Semneby is trying again to diffuse the crisis through mediation. Read the rest of this entry »

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United on strategy, divided on tactics

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, Moldova, neighbourhood crises on April 24, 2009

It is almost trivial to see the EU divided: on Kosovo, the Perejil island crisis, or the Iraq war. But EU disunity has been most systematic and paralysing when it came to EU policies on Russia and the Eastern neighbourhood, as this power audit showed. Every time a crisis erupted in the eastern neighbourhood the EU was often incapacitated because of two factors.

First, many EU member states hesitated to act assertively in the Eastern neighbourhood for fear of irritating Russia. For many EU states good relations with Russia are more important than developments in Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova. This often forced the EU to act at the lowest common denominator. Whenever it could, the EU shunned meaningful action.

Second, EU member states diverged hugely in the interpretation of events and, consequently, in possible responses. As one EU official once told me about a president from the eastern neighbourhood “you can’t save Y from his once stupidity”. This entirely misses the point: the EU had to get engage in the Balkans not because it liked Hashim Thachi or Slobodan Milosevic, but because Balkan realities were threatening European interests and values. The same goes for the eastern neighbourhood. The EU might not like Aliev, Lukashenko, Sargsyan, Youshchenko, Saakashvili and Voronin, but that is precisely the reason why it has to get more engaged. And that is precisely the reason why the Eastern partnership is being launched. If Moldova was like Estonia and Ukraine was like Poland, there would be no need for an Eastern partnership. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Eastern Partnership

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, South Caucasus on April 14, 2009

Here is an interview on the Eastern Partnership for Arminfo, a news agency from Armenia, 28.03.2009.

Arminfo: The EU has recently approved the Eastern Partnership program. What is the value of this initiative for the countries included in it?

NP: The Eastern Partnership could help these countries reform, and through such reforms they could strengthen their independence and statehood. The Eastern neighbourhood is very crisis-prone as recent wars, territorial conflicts, political tensions and gas-supply disruptions have proved. The Eastern partnership will try to help EU’s neighbours overcome some of these crises. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Eastern Partnership in crisis

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, economic crisis, Moldova, Ukraine on March 24, 2009

The EU has recently approved the Eastern Partnership initiative, just at the moment when the global economic crisis is changing the rules of the game in the Eastern neighbourhood, and elsewhere.  Both Russia and the EU will have fewer resources – money and political attention – to be too preoccupied with the neighbours. I previously wrote about the Russian neighbourhood policy in times of crisis. The Eastern Partnership is not in crisis, but will have to be implemented in times of crisis. But what is the likely impact of the crisis on the Eastern Partnership?

The Eastern Partnership is an attempt to resuscitate the European neighbourhood policy and focus EU’s political attention on the East. But now the economic crisis is stealing the show. Concentrated on itself, with the growing danger of protectionism inside the EU, and growing negative attitudes to “foreign” workers, many aspects of the European integration process, let alone the EU neighbourhood policy will come under strain. Read the rest of this entry »

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