Translated material
Partnership bypassing Russia
The European Union is seducing the countries of the former USSR
The heads of state and government of the 27 European Union member countries will gather today in Brussels for a two-day summit. They will discuss ways to overcome the economic downturn, the fate of an ambitious climate change plan threatened by the financial crisis, and the prospects for ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's essential constitutional framework. All these are problems affecting the very existence of the European Union.But there is a topic on the summit agenda that concerns Russia and the consequences of the conflict in Georgia. This is a project for the development of special relations between the EU and the countries of Eastern Europe and Transcaucasia. It is called the Eastern Partnership and is based on an initiative put forward in the first half of the year by Poland and Sweden. At first, many EU countries were not enthusiastic about this, but after the August war in the Caucasus it received widespread support and on December 3 it was formalized as an official document of the European Union. On the eve of the opening of the summit, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso expressed hope that a new dimension of EU foreign policy will take on concrete contours in the upcoming half-year of the Czech presidency of the organization.
The Eastern Partnership covers six former Soviet republics - Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus (subject to its democratization). The European Union is not going to accept any of these countries, whose total population is 75 million people, into its ranks in the foreseeable future, but wants to bring them closer to itself economically and politically. Barroso admitted that the impetus for accelerating work on the new strategy was the conflict in Georgia.
Brussels proposes to conclude association and free trade agreements with the former Soviet republics. Over time, they may develop into some kind of economic community with post-Soviet countries, similar to what the EU has with Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. It is proposed to begin negotiations on easing the visa regime along with strengthening the joint fight against illegal immigration.
EU members, according to Barroso, “want stability and prosperity, not uncertainty, to reign in neighboring regions.” But the head of the European Commission assured that the EU “does not seek to create new spheres of influence and draw new dividing lines in Europe,” since “this is a bad concept of the past era, the times of the Cold War.” The head of the executive branch of the European Union admitted that the EU wants to influence post-Soviet countries, but called this the “influence of values” - democracy, human rights, freedom of the press: “Partnership is an excellent manifestation of what can be called “soft power”, attractiveness EU, allowing us to transform the societies of countries close to us.”
The Eastern Partnership project is not limited to lofty words about common values, but also involves increasing financial assistance to the six post-Soviet countries. If approved at the current summit, the “baptism” of the new community will take place in April in the Czech Republic at a meeting of top officials of 32 or 33 (if Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is invited) European states. Russia is not invited there.
Commenting on the initiative of the European Union, the president of the Brussels think tank EU-Russia, Lord Paddy Ashdown, told Vremya Novostey that all parties made mistakes in the Georgian crisis: “Saakashvili made a mistake in trying to solve the problem of Georgia’s integrity by military force. The West - promising Georgia the prospect of joining NATO, despite the alliance's unwillingness to provide military assistance to it. Russia - hitting Georgia with disproportionate force. Europeans saw in Russia’s actions a return to the “Brezhnev Doctrine” on spheres of influence. After all, it took Europe half a century to move away from this condition, which for a thousand years gave rise to wars on the continent.”
Paddy Ashdown regards the Eastern Partnership as an “elegant” form of refusing promises to Georgia and Ukraine to be accepted into NATO: “But Brussels must clearly indicate that their accession to the European Union is not excluded and does not depend on the opinion of Russia.” According to the Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs of the European Parliament, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Georgia and Ukraine will be able to join the European Union in 10-20 years, “when they approach the socio-economic level of the EU.”