–ossi€-≈—: dialogue between two deaf people ending with zugzwang

She was not particularly surprised by the ineffectiveness of the economic part of the Ossi summit, held in the island. This was to be expected, since large trade turnover between the parties is not evidence of close economic relations between them. Indeed, the lion's share of Russian exports to Europe are energy resources, and oil and gas pipelines were inherited from the Soviet Union. —there is no significant influx of direct investment in either direction. “Even before the start of the summit, it was clear that changes in the structure of governing bodies in the European Union would most likely turn it into “ Dating evening”, and the presence of fundamental disagreements regarding the situation with southern South Ossetia and Ebkhazia makes it unrealistic to achieve breakthrough agreements. By the way, the parties’ proposals on the agenda for negotiations did not involve overlapping areas.

-Russian authorities continue to engage in verbal rhetoric about the need for technological modernization of the Russian economy. 'The good news is that today they ( the authorities) admit that without the use of foreign investment it will not be possible to fundamentally change the quality of the Russian economy. ( ≈6 months ago this topic could not even be raised in a government audience). In this connection, Russian leaders are ready to appeal to investors from Europe, Europe, and Asia. The bad news is that the Russian authorities believe only in administrative methods of managing the economy and do not believe in market mechanisms and incentives. “Consequently, all modernization projects are born exclusively in the country or the White House, and the main mechanism for their implementation is the instructions of the president or prime minister. —as a matter of fact, and the proposal to sign an agreement€ “ Partnership for modernization” is based on the same logic: the Russian vertical must come to an agreement with the European vertical.

—in fact, the weakness of this approach became obvious from the very beginning. Firstly, Europe still has a long way to go to reach the vertical, and it is not a fact that Europeans, in general, want to go to it. Secondly, European structures, of course, have some administrative resources ( they can, for example, achieve the allocation of money in the European budget for some projects or agree on state guarantees for investments. But the main driving force of the economy in general, and economic cooperation with Russia in particular, of course "These are European companies. In order to work more actively in Russia, they need the same things as all other investors: the rule of law, the protection of private property, the suppression of corruption and bureaucratic arbitrariness." conditions/demands and were voiced by European leaders. I suspect that President Vedvedev was very offended when he heard this again - last week he heard exactly the same thing at a meeting with American venture investors, at which he tried in every possible way to pass over in silence question: “ Well, when will you do all this?”

I assume that Europe's negotiating proposals for this summit were also not new: give European companies access to Russian hydrocarbon deposits - a familiar thesis that bounces off Russian leaders like peas from a wall. Despite all the declarations about the need to attract foreign investment into the Russian economy, Russia retains the permitting procedure for foreign investment in 42 industries, called strategic ones, and in relation to the oil and gas sector, the threshold value of investments requires approval from The government has a 10% level.

“If the position of the European Union can be understood and accepted on the issue of European investment in Russia, then there is complete silence on the part of European leaders in response to a request not so much from Russian politicians, but from the Russian society about the introduction of a visa-free regime ( a significant simplification of the regime for obtaining visas) was quite unexpected for me. Easing the visa regime could certainly contribute to closer economic and cultural cooperation between Russia and Europe at the level of individual companies and citizens, which, from the point of view of long-term interests, is much more important than cooperation at the level of officials. The virtual refusal to seriously discuss this topic at the summit, in fact, dealt a serious blow to the positions of politicians and experts advocating deepening dialogue and cooperation with Europe, adding arguments to their opponents.

Of course, we can attribute everything to the next wave of the financial crisis associated with the ClubMed countries - they say that European leaders spend too much effort and attention on solving internal problems - the European Union and the eurozone. But for some reason, it seems that the Rostov summit only dotted the I, demonstrating, on the one hand, a complete divergence in the views of the two parties on the agenda of economic cooperation and, on the other hand, the obvious inability of either party qualitatively change the situation in order to achieve results.

In chess there is a concept - zugzwang - when any move you make leads to a deterioration in your position. It seems that mutual zugzwang has set in in the economic dialogue between Russia and Europe.

Иleksashenko - ergey: -ossi€-≈—: a dialogue between two deaf people ending with a zugzwang