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The big grizzly in Europe’s backyard

CONFRONTING a grizzly bear can be an unnerving experience. The odds are that you’ll either provoke it, which is almost suicidal, or flee the scene, which, however, is no guarantee that it will not head for you anyway.

Members of the European Union have been stuck in this predicament for as long as one can remember as they contemplate how to tackle the Russian bear in its backyard that is beginning to rewrite the rules of international politics in the light of its growing clout as a rising energy superpower.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been playing a whole new ballgame where it was confident of dividing Europe while adding to its list of bilateral disputes, encouraged by the background of its ex-Soviet satellites dithering amongst themselves over finding their rightful place in the expanding EU pantheon. Rows over Polish meat exports, Lithuanian oil exports, the siting of an Estonian war memorial, and Czech and Polish plans to host an American anti-missile defence system – all these have been grist to the mill of Putin’s ideological tack of “strategic partners”.

But this scenario may be coming to an end for Russia for a simple reason. The illusionary embrace of EU solidarity is giving way to a growing voice of unity amongst its 27 members who have begun to react as a new monolithic EU group. It was from this point of view that the recently concluded “informal” meeting of EU foreign ministers in northern Portugal assumed significance as it was witness to discussions on Russia that were different from anything previously encountered. It saw an unusual session of soul-searching to devise a strategy with which to deal with “a very different Russia”.

Ever since 1999 Europe has been seeking a “strategic partnership” with Russia following the coinage of this phrase in an EU policy paper, but to little avail. The difficulty of the process was dictated not so much by a shift in European thinking as by the marked change in Russia’s behaviour on the international stage, driven by the enormous clout acquired by it in the wake of its humongous oil and gas reserves.

The ministers who emerged from deliberations in Portugal were fairly unanimous in calling for a “true strategic partnership” with Russia that ideally should exclude the “problems” that the EU had recently encountered. The situation was, however, not without its irony in the “paradox” that saw EU-Russia trade and investment flows growing by 20 per cent a year while drawing increasing criticism about Russia’s commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The EU has finally realised the imperative need to speak with one voice rather than the hitherto dissonant mode of preserving its democratic character and credibility. Note how Russia deigns to talk to the EU when it is deemed weak but prefers to talk to member countries “one by one” when it appears strong. It has also not gone unnoticed that France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy last month accused Russia of using its power with some “brutality”, a far cry from the days of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who treated Putin as an ally and a pal.

Indeed, the emergence of new leaders in Germany and France has served to contribute a sense of balance to what might otherwise have been an unbridled Mr Putin cracking the whip over neighbouring ex-Soviet countries that many in Moscow have never reconciled themselves to losing.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has not hesitated to challenge Mr Putin in public, chiding him earlier this year over the erosion of democratic rights by suppression of opposition protests. The contrast between her and her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder was strikingly on view recently when the latter showed up in Moscow to urge the EU to overrule Poland, which is blocking talks on a new EU-Russia treaty because of the meat ban. Furthermore, he declared tongue-in-cheek that it was sometimes in Europe’s interest to “forget about the interests of the individual countries”!

The deliberations in Portugal have pointed to a new vigour in European thinking about Russia, even if some uncomfortable questions cropped up in the process. Was Russia overplaying its hand and gratuitously picking fights on strategic issues that touch European nerves? Conversely, was it time to abandon the quest for a strategic partnership with Russia? It was definitely a ‘No’ to the latter.

But the EU has realised that it cannot ignore Russia as a neighbour or trade partner (it supplies half the EU’s gas imports). It has introduced tough measures designed to provide a level playing field whereby non-European businesses will be able to control energy network assets in the EU if they meet the proposals set out by the European Commission.

The move is expected to further liberalise EU energy markets. But can the EU continue to treat Russia as a benevolent ally? This is a loaded question. And can the EU deny Russia a role as actor in world trouble spots from Iran to North Korea, the Middle East and Kosovo?

In the meanwhile, Franco-German co-operation took a small beating. Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy were again at loggerheads over the independence of the European Central Bank (ECB). While the former has accused the ECB of allowing the French economy to “sink”, the German chancellor has vowed to block any political interference in monetary policy.

It was only last week that the two leaders had launched an ambitious joint initiative to create an “economic foreign policy” for Europe, aiming to fight barriers to investments and exchange rate manipulations in Asia and Russia. Obviously, the devil is in the details.