Russia's Attitudes towards the eu: Political Aspects

Broader context

There are two aspects of interaction between Russia and the EU that deserve attention when analyzing prospects of developments outside the areas of their direct contact in Europe and its immediate vicinities.

'Out-of-area' cases

First, there are concrete 'out-of-area' issues that emerge on the agendas of the EU and Russia. For each of them, the relevance of such issues, the motivation of addressing them and the understanding of desirable outcomes could be different. Moreover, there is only partial overlapping of 'out-of-area' agendas that Russia and the EU define for themselves. However, although the lists of their concerns are by no means identical, they are not necessarily incompatible and do possess certain similar items. Common elements in perceptions, assessments and attitudes of Russia and the EU might constitute a basis for joint approaches, both in very general terms and as far as concrete political actions are concerned. In principle, there is here a potential for Russia's interaction with the CFSP—the potential that is becoming more significant alongside the 'expansion' of the EU onto the area of foreign policy.

As a model of such pattern, it seems possible to mention would-be attitudes towards Iran—an issue where positions of the EU and Russia have some resemblance, especially when assessed against the background of the US policy. Indeed, the later classifies Iran unambiguously as a 'rogue state' accusing it in human rights abuse, sponsorship of international terrorism and intention to build up nuclear and missile potential that would eventually threaten the United States. Furthermore, Washington insists that its obsession with Iran has to be shared and supported by the US allies and partners; failure to do so becomes a criteria of the US negative attitudes towards, and pressures upon respective countries.

In particular, Russia is blamed for assisting Iran in developing its nuclear weapons capabilities—or, in any case, for not promoting more rigorous practice in relations with Iran. Moscow has never recognized these accusations and believed them politically biased and ungrounded. Anyway, the 'Iranian issue' has been in the agenda of Russian American relations since mid-1990s, and its salience (promoted by Washington) has periodically complicated these relations and generated negative impulses on other areas of interaction between two countries.

Against this background, it is noteworthy that the EU started to improve its relations with Iran after elections there in 1997 that brought to power President Khatami, a more moderated Islamic leader that was expected to launch the internal evolution of the regime. The overture to Iran was advanced further on in September 2001 when the EU announced that it is prepared to broaden and improve its relations with Iran; the foreign minister of the later, in a first visit to Brussels since the 'Islamic revolution' of 1979, met with the EU officials that pointed to a prospect of 'revival of political dialogue', with President Khatami expected to visit Brussels in spring 2002⁶³.

This line dissociates the EU from the US policy, with its uncompromising 'rogue state' rhetoric and attempts to impose it onto other international actors. Although the tragic events of 11 September 2001 introduced some new motives in the US political line and made the EU solidarity with the USA more pronounced, the differences nevertheless remain. And this pushes the EU closer to Russia's approach. Indeed, both the EU and Russia seem to proceed from similar vision with respect to the future of Iran, both seem to anticipate this country's international status to become more prominent, both give preference to their own economic interests rather than to political goals that they do not share, and both prefer to pursue a more sophisticated policy rather than only recurring to pressure. Moreover, both seem to believe that the considerable changes are to be expected in the broader area around Iran, which makes expedient more active policy of engaging themselves in the region. Also, engaging regional actors in the international system may be considered important for promoting their international accountability, contributing to their forthcoming transformation and making it softer and less destabilizing.

These are, so to say, conceptual foundations of the attitudes of the EU and Russia towards Iran and its vicinity—foundations that seem to contain both elements of similarity with respect to each other and those of distancing with respect to the USA. The situation has been certainly modified somehow by the post 11 September developments—which is addressed later in this study⁶⁴. It is also true that geopolitical motives may be stronger in the case of Russia; indeed, the latter associates with Iran some additional contexts that are determined by territorial proximity and are of less relevance to the EU. At the same time, the EU points to significant differences with Iran on human rights, the death penalty and freedom of press—while all these themes seem to be of lower sensitivity for Russia's foreign policy. Nevertheless, this case may be considered one of those where Russia and the EU have de facto analogous positions, and for this reason open for their constructive political interaction.

Another notorious example (even if not inscribed into the mainstream of both sides' policies) relates to their connections with North Korea. Both Russia and the EU have been developing them recently, although independently of each other—but in striking juxtaposition to the policy of Washington.

Indeed, upon arrival to power at the beginning of 2001, the Republican administration temporary withdrew from active diplomacy on Korean Peninsula and President George W.Bush decided to freeze talks with North Korea on halting its missile program. Meanwhile, the EU announced its plan to establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang and sent there a delegation—which was objectively closer to the line advocated by Russia. Suffice it to mention that President Putin scheduled to meet with Kim Jong Il in April 2001 in an effort to persuade him to agree to reconciliation with South Korea and to abandon the ballistic missile programme that has been cited by Washington as a large part of its motivation for developing a missile defense⁶⁵. In fact, the EU and Russia joined each other in engaging into an active Korean-oriented diplomacy, and their lines developed in juxtaposition to that of the USA⁶⁶.

There are certainly other issues on which the EU and Russia could find common language when discussing some aspects of the US policy: the non-ratification of the CTBT and the treaty banning the land mines, the Bush administration's rejection of the 1997 Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the US Government's hostility to the treaty creating an international tribunal on crimes against humanity… Certainly, this all by no means leads to building an alliance against the USA—which would anyway be an unrealistic proposition. Indeed, similar approaches should not necessarily be a function of the US assertiveness or unilaterlaism, they could be promoted by other factors as well. By and large, various problematic situations in the international arena emerging outside Europe might constitute a significant part of the EU—Russia political agenda appealing either to common assessments or even to joint actions of both sides.

Global governance

But it seems also possible to distinguish another aspect of their eventual 'out-of-area' interaction—the one that might seem less concrete but concerns more fundamental processes in the international arena. It touches upon the on-going transformation of the overall international system, both in terms of its restructuring and its substance. Indeed, with the end of the cold war and bipolarity, on the one hand, alongside the controversial developments of the globalization, on the other hand, the international system has entered a period of dramatic challenges and dramatic changes.

There are two major lines of thinking when considering possible answers to these challenges. One tends to focus upon worldwide realignments in the international arena, with different models of global geopolitical configuration in the making (unipolar world with the predominance of the USA as the only remaining superpower, new bipolarity with the USA and China as the main protagonists, oligarchic system with a few major international actors setting the rules and enforcing their observation, and so on). Another one promotes post-modern ideas of introducing qualitative changes in the world system that would reflect new realities, such as relative decline of states, growing prominence of various non-state actors, predominance of transnational financial flows, revolutionary implications of new information technologies—but also dramatically increasing centre-periphery gap and globalization of new challenges, such as terrorism, organized crime, uncontrolled migration and so on.

Whatever direction would prevail in practical political developments, it is obvious that the role of major international players will be essential therein. Both Russia and the EU are among such players. Their impact would be considerable anyway—either upon the geopolitical reorganization of the world or within various post-modernity models. But the effectiveness of their impact will be commensurate with their ability to develop common understanding of what is to be done, and how.

This requires serious debate on the longer term fundamental problems rather than on current issues of common interest. Indeed, while thinking about the challenges of the future (and putting aside some small problems—such as NATO enlargement—which in a couple of decades will seem insignificant), it is the broader management of the international system that has every chance of being the issue of the 21st century. Cooperation between the EU and Russia might be essential in addressing this issue, but nowadays both seem to lack adequate future oriented thinking. This might be one more reason for engaging in this endeavor cooperatively.