2005 Averre

European Security
ISSN: 0966-2839 (Print) 1746-1545 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/feus20
Russia and the European Union: Convergence or

Divergence?
Dr Derek Averre
To cite this article: Dr Derek Averre (2005) Russia and the European Union: Convergence or
Divergence?, European Security, 14:2, 175-202, DOI: 10.1080/09662830500336060
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09662830500336060
Published online: 24 Jan 2007.
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European Security
Vol. 14, No. 2, 175/202, June 2005
Russia and the European Union:

Convergence or Divergence?
DEREK AVERRE
European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, UK
ABSTRACT European Union enlargement has left Russia on the margins of European
political processes and led to widespread suspicion in the Moscow foreign policy establish-
ment of European motives. This has resulted in, first, increasing resistance to the imposition
of European norms and, second, a more assertive policy, particularly in the EU’s and
Russia’s ‘overlapping neighbourhoods’. Although Moscow is likely to continue the strategy
of engagement initiated under Putin, Brussels must radically rethink the nature and extent of
Russia’s ‘Europeanisation’. Russia’s drive for modernisation will coexist with the
strengthening of sovereignty and the power of the state, seen by the Putin administration
as key to external and internal security. The EU will have to limit its ambition and work
within this ‘window’ */wider or narrower depending on state of play */of policy possibilities.
Introduction
Since the turn of the decade there has been a great deal of activity aimed
at consolidating the ‘strategic partnership’ between the European Union and
Russia. Both sides have emphasised common interests across a broad range of
foreign and security policy issues, notably the Middle East, the Balkans and the
campaign against terrorism and WMD proliferation. Mechanisms have been
established for enhanced policy consultation at various levels, culminating in
the creation of a unique Permanent Partnership Council (PPC) to engage
key parts of the Russian Federation (RF) government and carry forward
initiatives agreed at summits. Reciprocal economic relations have been
cemented with the signing in May 2004 of the agreement concluding bilateral
market access negotiations for Russia’s accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO).1 The European Commission’s European Neighbourhood
Policy (ENP),2 a ‘strategy paper’ aimed at integrating its southern and eastern
neighbours into a wider Europe following the May 2004 enlargement */in
which Russia was initially included*/appeared in May 2004 and its main
provisions were endorsed by the EU Council in June 2004. In the meantime the
Correspondence Address : Dr Derek Averre, Centre for Russian and East European Studies,
European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. Email: d.l.averre@bham.ac.uk
ISSN 0966-2839 Print/1746-1545 Online/05/020175 /28 # 2005 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09662830500336060
176 D. Averre
May 2003 EU /Russia summit decided to pursue the concept of four ‘common
spaces’3 as a basis for taking the relationship forward; Moscow appointed
senior government officials to oversee each of these policy areas and a ‘road
map’ for each common space was published following the May 2005 summit.
President Vladimir Putin declared at the November 2004 summit that the
common spaces initiative ‘opens up the broadest opportunities for substantially
strengthening our interaction across practically all issues’.4
Nevertheless, in spite of the plethora of agreements, strategies, initiatives and
concepts underpinning the relationship it has become apparent that there are
fundamental difficulties facing Brussels and Moscow. Moscow’s displeasure
over the lack of consultation prior to the May 2004 enlargement and over
Schengen visa regimes, the future of Kaliningrad and the position of Russian
minorities in the Baltic states, as well as Brussels’ criticism of Russia’s policy in
Chechnya, the Yukos affair, media freedom and civil rights, have reinforced
negative attitudes towards the EU in the Russian political establishment. While
Brussels maintains its principal objective of strategic partnership with Russia
and has welcomed the stability afforded by a second term for Putin, it is taking
a more robust approach to his administration’s interpretation of the common
values*/democracy, human rights and the rule of law */which, in the eyes of
the EU, constitute the foundation of the partnership. Moscow, increasingly
intent on consolidating its position at the centre of political, economic and
security structures in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),5 has
refused to engage with the ENP. Negotiations over the common spaces,
particularly those pertaining to security, have proved problematic. The PPC
and consultative mechanisms have been dogged by procedural difficulties and
meetings have often lacked real content;6 the flexibility in the format for
negotiations is unlikely to extend to a fully operational PPC with the
participation of all member states in a 25/1 format, as desired by Moscow,
rather than the predominant troika format insisted on by the EU.7 Brussels
excludes the possibility for Russia to participate in any shape or form in
internal EU decision-making.8
The future of the EU /Russia partnership is thus uncertain. One leading
Russian commentator has observed that, while the PPC expands the format
for consultation, ‘the matter of creating some kind of new mechanism to
formulate and take decisions remains undecided . . . how do we guarantee
the interaction of the two Europes */the greater Europe based on an enlarging
EU and NATO and the Europe which incorporates Russia and the space forming
around Russia?’.9 As a French security expert argues, even if institutions
are developed ‘they can neither decree nor create [mutual] trust . . . it is not
certain that these at least partly common interests and the dialogue existing
between Russians and Western countries are sufficient to develop a common
security culture: the will to think and act together’.10 Russia remains very much
on the margins of mainstream European political processes. Indeed, one
analyst’s conclusion runs directly counter to Putin’s optimistic assessment cited
Russia and the European Union 177
above: ‘The basis for the EU/Russia partnership is as narrow as it has ever
been’.11
In the last few years a number of works have appeared examining EU /
Russia political and security relations.12 This paper13 focuses on recent
developments, in particular analysing Russian attitudes to EU policy towards
its new eastern neighbours. It initially offers a critical appraisal of the ENP, and
goes on to examine the prospects for the common spaces of freedom, security
and justice and external security. Does Moscow’s rejection of the ENP signal
the failure of Brussels’ eastern policy or is a modus vivendi evolving which
promises deeper partnership? It goes on to assess Moscow’s responses to the
EU’s evolving external policy and the likely impact on their common
neighbourhood. Is Russia’s focus on CIS integration a retreat in the face of
difficulties in relations with Europe or does it signal a well-defined foreign
policy course? If so is it an exclusive process, in effect representing the
divergence of ‘two Europes’ centred on Brussels and Moscow? What should the
EU’s response to Russia’s declared interests in the CIS be? Finally, it considers
how differing perceptions of the future of their common neighbourhood and of
Russia’s own internal development might impact upon the strategic partner-
ship. Will the relationship henceforth be limited to instrumental cooperation
over specific economic and security issues or can the Russian and European
policy communities develop a genuine common vision for a wider Europe that
goes beyond rhetorical engagement to become firmly rooted in shared norms
and values?
The European Neighbourhood Policy and Russia: Failure to Square the Circle
The ENP is essentially about security. It seeks to promote internal security,
stability and sustainable development in the enlarged EU through closer
relations with its eastern and southern neighbours */the Western newly-
independent states (Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova), the countries of the South
Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) and Southern Mediterranean */
creating ‘an enlarged area of political stability and functioning rule of law’14
and reinforcing ‘existing forms of regional and sub-regional cooperation’.15 It
contains important political commitments in such areas as intensified
cooperation to prevent and combat common security threats, deepening
political and cultural contacts, and integration of neighbours into trade and
infrastructure networks; it also refers to the common challenge of subregional
conflicts and greater EU political involvement in conflict prevention and crisis
management, notably in funding post-conflict reconstruction. It represents an
attempt to look in a more concerted fashion beyond enlargement to a wider
European security space where its neighbours would be partners in facing up to
shared challenges.
The ENP relies on the acceptance by its new neighbours of convergence with
the policy’s strong normative agenda. The EU’s aim is clearly stated: to create
178 D. Averre
‘a ring of countries, sharing the EU’s fundamental values and objectives, drawn
into an increasingly close relationship, going beyond co-operation to involve a
significant measure of economic and political integration’.16 Greater assistance is
offered to bolster these countries’ economic, political and social development,
including ‘the prospect of a stake in the EU internal market based on legislative
and regulatory approximation’, participation in Community programmes and a
better coordinated and funded neighbourhood instrument in the next budget
period from 2007 to support cross-border cooperation programmes. Benefits
are offered conditionally within a differentiated framework via jointly agreed
‘Action Plans’; depending on progress made by these countries in political and
economic reform they may lead to more extensive ‘European Neighbourhood
Agreements’ to replace existing bilateral contractual agreements. However, the
ENP closes the door on further enlargement of the EU eastwards at the present
stage: the ‘privileged relationship with neighbours’ is ‘distinct from the
possibilities available to European countries under article 49 of the Treaty on
European Union’.17 As Emerson points out, whereas the process envisages the
‘Europeanisation’ of former communist countries and weak states, ‘the
distinction is made between accession to EU membership (as a formal
legal and political act) and Europeanisation as a wider process of political,
economic and social transformation . . . [via] the will of the individual, political
parties and interest groups to accept or even push for the adoption of European
norms of business and politics’.18
As mentioned above, Russia was originally included along with Ukraine,
Belarus and Moldova in the preliminary ‘Wider Europe */Neighbourhood’
framework document (henceforth ‘Wider Europe’), published in 2003. How-
ever, the Russian foreign ministry’s main spokesman on Europe, deputy foreign
minister Vladimir Chizhov, seized on its conceptual flaws in a series of highly
critical speeches and interviews.19 The ‘Wider Europe’ document bracketed
Russia and the Western newly-independent states together with the Mediterra-
nean as states with ‘a history of autocratic and non-democratic governance and
poor records in protecting human rights and freedom of the individual’,20
without attempting to reflect the differences and complexities of modernisation
across these countries. Although Russian governance and human rights issues
have constantly been on the agenda in EU/Russia talks, this was easily
interpreted as an open snub to Moscow’s declared commitment to European
values. Furthermore, Russia was reduced to one among several Eastern
neighbours with little indication of what the political establishment in Moscow
considers to be its special role in European affairs. Finally, the ‘Wider Europe’
paper paid little attention to relations between Russia and the Western newly-
independent states */a key part of Russian foreign policy */beyond a tentative
reference to encouraging new initiatives for subregional cooperation. It referred
to the Northern Dimension initiative, with its inclusive approach to transna-
tional issues and cross-border cooperation, as a possible model, but without
developing the concept further.
Although the 2004 ENP paper redressed some of these shortcomings */

omitting references to poor governance and human rights records, acknowl-
edging the distinctive nature of the EU /Russia relationship and emphasising
that Russia and the EU ‘form part of each others’ neighbourhood’ */Russia’s
foreign policy establishment refused to engage with its policy implications.
While maintaining a positive attitude to relations with the EU in general and to
the process of European integration within the context of a wider common
European security space, Moscow highlighted the risk */in direct contrast to
what the policy purports to achieve*/of erecting geopolitical and psychological
dividing lines between the enlarged EU and countries to the east. Chizhov
warned*/in a pointed historical reference */of the danger of creating buffer
states or ‘limitrophes’ on Russia’s Western borders.21 He also explicitly rejected
Brussels’ insistence on progressive engagement through convergence with the
EU’s normative agenda as a kind of pax Romana in which policy is imposed by
a ‘metropolis’ on the ‘provinces’, in this case represented by Brussels and its
external neighbours.22 Russia, Chizhov insisted, must be considered an equal
partner and not the object of a ‘civilising influence’ exercised by other countries
or groups of states.23 While claiming that Russia does not seek a monopoly over
leadership in the CIS and floating the idea of a wider Europe linking parallel
processes of EU and CIS integration based on broadly similar values and
security aims,24 Chizhov delivered a diplomatic but barely coded warning to
Brussels against ‘counterproductive’ interference in the CIS, particularly in
frozen conflicts there: ‘Our position is that the post-Soviet space should not
become an arena of rivalry for forces pursuing their various interests, as it is a
matter of guaranteeing Russia’s national security and defending its political and
economic interests, and ultimately European security’.25
Russian commentaries on the ENP */overshadowed in fact by the lively
debate surrounding the latest round of NATO enlargement in 2004 */were
confined to a small number of policy analysts26 and also contained little in the
way of a positive response. Elites are divided over whether Russia should seek
closer integration with the EU, with no clear consensus emerging. In a recent
policy report, the majority of a representative selection of authoritative analysts
argued that integration through adaptation to EU norms should be rejected in
favour of an agreement between ‘two subjects of global economics and politics
who are independent from each other and are not integrating’, with only a
minority in favour of deeper integration.27 Conservative commentators have
offered a traditional geopolitical interpretation of the EU’s external policy,
describing it as a typical product of Brussels’ bureaucratic rhetoric, with the
notion of a ‘ring of friends’ concealing attempts to create a ‘cordon sanitaire ’
around the EU’s perimeter.28 They have questioned the global ambitions and
interests in the CIS of the EU */widely considered ‘a difficult partner’29 */and
pointed out that most member states are also members of NATO; given the
latter’s offensive military doctrine and record, demonstrated in the Kosovo
conflict, of preventive war and humanitarian intervention bypassing the UN
180 D. Averre
Security Council, Moscow should, they argue, be under no illusions and seek a
pragmatic security agreement with Brussels.30 These views are not too far
removed from those of more extreme nationalists */a vocal minority */who
discern a wider geopolitical plot by the West to weaken Russia by enmeshing it
in a ‘sticky web’ of security cordons and force alien norms and values on its
people.31
Liberal elites */a narrow section of the political establishment which has
become more and more marginalised in the recent period */are in something of
a crisis over Russia’s engagement with the EU. A number of liberal analysts have
in the recent period begun to repudiate the imposition of norms and voice
scepticism over the ultimate aim of integration with the EU */formerly a central
element of the liberal discourse.32 Even those who still advocate deeper
engagement are disillusioned with the uneven progress made in relations
between Brussels and Moscow, bemoaning the lack of a shared vision and
critical of the common spaces, ‘devoid of any practical content’, being created.33
This shift in liberal attitudes means that there is practically no influential body
of opinion outside official circles prepared to debate the merits of Brussels’
external policy and influence Moscow’s foreign policy course in favour of
integration into Europe via closer identification with EU norms and values.
The ENP appeared at a time when the EU was seeking coherence in its
relations with Russia, which */as a Commission Communication and the
particularly critical Belder report for the European Parliament acknowl-
edged34 */had hitherto proved in short supply. This should be seen in the
general context of the evolution of the EU as a credible foreign policy actor;
both then external relations commissioner Chris Patten and Secretary General/
High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) Javier
Solana spoke repeatedly of the challenge of introducing coherence into the
Union’s external policy-making, in which CFSP and other external relations
instruments should be coordinated and ‘seamless’. As Patten emphasised,
external relations or, in Brussels jargon, external ‘action’ is a much wider
concept than CFSP, encompassing first pillar issues such as development
cooperation and technical assistance, trade, environmental, visa and asylum
and a range of other policies (including, increasingly, home affairs and police
and judicial cooperation under third pillar) plus ‘classical’ foreign policy in the
form of CFSP.35 The neighbourhood policy, despite the fact that it originated in
the Enlargement directorate, is essentially a Commission external relations
initiative */indeed, the Commissioner for External Relations is now responsible
for the ENP */which envisages the use of the whole range of EU policies and
instruments in pursuit of objectives closely integrated into the Union’s decision-
making machinery.
Efforts were evidently made to ‘join up’ the neighbourhood policy and the
European Security Strategy (ESS),36 a key CFSP document which stemmed in
part from Europe’s failure to present a united front in the Iraq crisis but also
more fundamentally from the need to articulate a coherent vision for CFSP in
the light of US global strategy, problems in transatlantic relations and new

security challenges.37 The ESS starts from the same premise as the ENP, linking
internal and external aspects of EU security, but takes a more ‘traditional’,
threat-driven approach, outlining key global challenges and threats and
formulating strategic objectives and policy implications for Europe. The
importance of Russia, placed on a par with the US and NATO and described
as ‘a major factor in our security and prosperity’, is made explicit in the ESS,
reflecting the strengthening of cooperation with Russia on security matters
(also emphasised in the Joint Declaration of the EU /Russia summit Joint
Statement in November 200338) and implying equality within a broad security
partnership. Russia shares, as a key part of its declared foreign policy,39 the
approach of ‘effective multilateralism’ underpinning the ESS, which also
informs the Commission document ‘The European Union and the United
Nations: The Choice of Multilateralism’.40
In spite of these efforts at coherence*/as Patten put it in an article in a
leading Russian newspaper, ‘closing the gap between rhetoric and reality’41 */
the Commission’s attempts to finesse the essential contradiction between a
strategic partnership with Moscow, emphasised in the ESS, and Russia’s status
in the ‘Wider Europe’ framework as one of a number of regional states expected
to meet normative criteria to obtain a closer relationship with the EU were
wholly unconvincing. In a speech to Russian diplomats, then commissioner for
enlargement Günter Verheugen stated that ‘Russia is of course much more than
a neighbour, since it is a strategic partner; but it is also a neighbour’; he talked
of integrating the neighbourhood policy into the broader bilateral relationship
in order to reinforce partnership.42 This evident attempt to square the circle
between what Moscow insists on*/equality within the strategic partnership */
and what it interprets as Brussels’ ‘centre/periphery approach’, seeking to exert
political influence over less powerful countries on its periphery via rigidly
imposed norms, revealed what several commentators have interpreted as serious
weaknesses in Brussels’ external policy-making.
It should also be noted that Moscow’s attempts to cultivate bilateral relations
with the more influential European states, seen as a more effective channel
for promoting Russia’s foreign policy interests,43 have undercut Brussels’ policy.
This was underscored in the Belder report,44 but since then the Commission’s
vocal criticism of Russian policy in Chechnya and pleas for consistency on
this issue from member states */even raised by Patten in the immediate
aftermath of the Beslan school siege in September 200445 */have con-
trasted with the more supportive stance taken by the German, French and
Italian governments.46 This has fostered the impression in Moscow that the EU’s
policy for its eastern neighbourhood provides little more than ‘‘‘added value’’
with respect to existing mechanisms for cooperation’.47 However positive the
intentions on the part of Commission spokespeople and however creative their
attempts to construct a coherent strategy for Russia, the gap between rhetoric
and reality in the eyes of Moscow’s political establishment remains.
182 D. Averre
With Moscow rejecting a neighbourhood policy which marginalises its role in

European security and, at worst, threatens to undermine its leading role in
integrating the CIS */as Putin has emphasised, its ‘most important foreign
policy priority’48 */EU /Russia relations are being taken forward bilaterally via
the development of the four common spaces, corresponding to Moscow’s vision
of the relationship. One outstanding question is whether Russia will avail itself of
EU assistance from the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument
(ENPI); it remains unclear to what extent the latter’s ‘benchmarking’ approach
would affect the provision of assistance to Russia in the event of weak
compliance with the norms and values of the EU.49 There may well be
increasing resistance in Moscow to signing up to agreements with any element
of conditionality attached, and agreement over the criteria for ‘benchmarking’
will be difficult to achieve. It is unlikely that the ENPI, despite the promise of
increased resources and greater ownership of joint programmes by external
partners, will in fact have much impact overall on political and economic
developments in Russia.50 The momentum for cross-border cooperation
generated within the EU’s Northern Dimension initiative has dissipated;
Moscow has complained that its suggestions for improving mechanisms for
prioritising projects have not been heeded by the EU.51 Despite a generous
level of funding hitherto the Commission has been unable to coordinate its work
with other actors in the region. Russian sources acknowledge that the regions
lack administrative, political and often financial resources to develop autono-
mous cross-border relations while Moscow lacks a coherent policy and,
particularly with the recent introduction of measures to strengthen the power
of the federal centre over the regions, refuses to accept limits on its sovereignty.52
Without fresh political impetus, cross-border cooperation programmes / the
front line of Russia’s potential integration with Europe / may well be under
threat.
The ‘Common Spaces’: Filling or Perpetuating the Vacuum?

After two years of difficult negotiations a ‘single package of road maps’ was
adopted at the May 2005 EU /Russia summit for the creation of the four
common spaces */‘a Common Economic Space, a Common Space of Freedom,
Security and Justice, a Space of Co-operation in the field of External Security
[and] a Space of Research and Education’ */within the framework of the
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which remains the legal basis
for EU /Russia relations. The road maps ‘set out shared objectives for EU/
Russia relations as well as the actions necessary to make these objectives a
reality, and determine the agenda for cooperation between the EU and Russia
for the medium term’.53 It thus appears that the common spaces constitute little
more than an inventory of potential areas of convergence, an interim agenda for
relations pending a decision in the future on an agreement following the expiry
of the PCA */which was only briefly discussed at the summit */in 2007.
Although the special relationship with Moscow has been recognised formally
through these separate negotiations on the common spaces, they contain little
concrete indication of how ‘cooperation’ and ‘dialogue’ will be translated into
practical action in terms of harmonisation of regulations, laws and legal
practices. Brussels has not given substantial ground on many of the Moscow’s
key political demands and appears to envisage that the common spaces should
be as far as possible consistent with the ‘convergence’ approach of the
neighbourhood policy; as one Russian analyst argues ‘the agreements place
much more of the onus*/in the form of adopting European standards and
norms */on the Russian side, without including any notion of membership as a
final goal . . . it still contains a list of unilateral EU demands towards Russia,
which have nothing to do with integration’.54 Achieving agreement in terms of
practical policy content has proved very difficult hitherto; whether the road
maps can achieve a critical mass of common views across key issue areas
sufficient to deepen the partnership is far from clear. As Dmitrii Danilov points
out, ‘already at this initial stage*/of working out ‘‘road maps’’ on the way to
common spaces */the EU and Russia are faced with a serious problem */the
lack of a common vision of these common spaces’.55 Evidence suggests that
Russia’s ‘integration’ into Europe is becoming increasingly selective and that
negotiations between the Brussels and Moscow bureaucracies lack both
strategic direction and common perceptions of a normative framework.56
Indeed, it is also unclear where the road maps are leading. Officials on both
sides have admitted that no agreement on the post-2007 framework for
relations has been reached. Chizhov has pointed out that negotiating a new
agreement to replace the PCA is likely to be a long and arduous task which
might not be completed by 2007;57 Brussels appears in no hurry to change the
‘‘‘softer’’ legal framework’ provided by the common spaces which simplifies
negotiations and brings fewer legal difficulties.58 In the absence of a new
agreement there is concern in Russia that the common spaces, which have no
juridical basis and limited political significance, will constitute the basis for
relations after 2007 and will fall victim to bureaucratic inertia.59
The text of the road map describing the external security space appears to
have been particularly bitterly contested. Russia’s negotiating position was
reflected in Chizhov’s statements prior to the summit, which implicitly rejected
the logic of the EU’s neighbourhood policy and any attempt by Brussels to
carve out a leading role in the CIS.60 Moscow succeeded in broadening the
scope of the external security space to include issues such as WMD
proliferation and terrorism, and in keeping out any references to a common
neighbourhood (the phrase ‘regions adjacent to the EU and Russian borders’ is
used instead). Working out a coherent common approach towards these regions
essentially presupposes a measure of agreement over common strategic
interests. However, Moscow’s insistence on minimum EU political and security
involvement in the CIS and on its recognition of Russia’s ‘participation’ */in
other words, its leading role */in integration processes61 comes at a time when
184 D. Averre
Brussels appears ready through the ENP to sustain more active political
involvement in the Western newly-independent states and South Caucasus,
including in crisis management and reform processes, and when some of these
countries are seeking deeper engagement with the EU. With both leading actors
in the wider Europe struggling to articulate their security interests and wary of
the intentions of the other, there is scope for substantial political dispute.
Moscow, with the geopolitical implications firmly in mind, has consistently
reiterated its opposition to the erection of new dividing lines in Europe yet
is acutely sensitive to any pro-European leanings in the CIS to the detriment
of Russia’s political influence. The May 2004 accession of new member states
of central and eastern Europe, which are supporting the Europeanisation of
Russia’s neighbours, has exacerbated this situation. Sergei Yastrzhembskii,
appointed Putin’s special representative responsible for the common space of
internal security, has voiced concern over the ‘spirit of confrontation and
intolerance’ and ‘primitive Russophobia’ whipped up by some representatives
of the new member states in the European Parliament.62 Moscow’s continuing
concerns over the position of ethnic Russian minorities in Estonia and
Latvia */which receives widespread coverage in the Russian media */only add
to the potential for tension between Russia and a post-enlargement EU.63
There is undoubtedly a need for greater coherence in EU dialogue with
Russia and its other Eastern neighbours and, arguably, a fresh approach to
subregional relations which takes into account each neighbour’s policy on
Europe. Developments in the subregion are important both in terms of Russia’s
immediate security concerns and of its future in a wider Europe; the course of
Russia’s own modernisation may well have a crucial influence over develop-
ments in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. The security challenges faced across
the region should form a central part of Russia’s talks with the EU, both on the
strategic level of foreign policy and in terms of subregional and transborder
governance, and should where possible involve other countries in the region.
Concern in EU states over a putative Russian ‘sphere of influence’ */indeed, a
growing insistence that there should be no droit de regard for Russia in their
common neighbourhood */and nationalist criticism in Russia over a further
‘loss of empire’ to European influence would be mitigated by factoring policy
on the Western newly-independent states into a more coherent reciprocal
strategy. Potential for a Russia /EU partnership to deal with security threats
emanating from their shared neighbourhood will only be realised if Brussels
can demonstrate how its range of instruments can be harnessed to stabilise
these regions*/more likely in the non-military sphere of humanitarian
assistance and support for establishing viable governance rather than military
involvement under an EU flag*/without countering Russia’s attempts to re-
establish political and economic influence in the post-Soviet space. As it stands,
given the EU’s cautious approach to involving non-member states there has
been minimal Russian involvement in the European Security and Defence
Policy (ESDP) to date and the common spaces dialogue has failed to produce
progress beyond a tentative commitment to ‘strengthen EU /Russian dialogue

. . . [and] improve mutual understanding of respective procedures and concepts
. . . [which] could lead to the development of principles and modalities for joint
approaches in crisis management’.64
The list of areas of possible cooperation under the common space of
freedom, security and justice is long and impressive, and the progress which has
been made is indicative of genuine shared concerns. No less impressive are the
‘overarching principles’ underlying EU /Russia cooperation in this field */
equality between partners, adherence to common values of democracy and
rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms65 */which, as
indicated earlier, reflects Brussels’ core concerns in relations with Russia. For its
part Moscow is evidently happy to sign up to these fundamental principles
while interpreting them in its own way; it is perhaps significant that much more
attention is devoted to the ‘security’ aspect of this common space than to
‘freedom’ and ‘justice’, which will depend to a large extent on political will to
carry out administrative, judicial and law enforcement reforms.
A central Russian concern is the visa regime. The impact of Schengen
regulations affects not only the Kaliningrad exclave, which finds itself wholly
within the EU, but has also involved reinforcing the ‘hard’ border between
Finland and Russia, strengthening the perception in Russia of its political and
psychological exclusion. The visa regime was one of the 14 issues of concern
conveyed by Moscow to Brussels in advance of the May 2004 enlargement66
and these problems have been extensively discussed at recent EU /Russia
summits. The EU has reiterated its readiness to consider as a long-term
prospect a visa-free regime while looking at possible flexibilities within
Schengen which might facilitate cross-border exchanges, and dual-track
negotiations have been initiated on this basis.67 A decision has been reached
to preserve facilitated visa issuance regimes with the new member states after
accession, and similar agreements have been put in place with Germany, France
and Italy for certain categories of citizens. Moscow and Brussels are negotiating
the facilitation of issuance of short-stay visas on a reciprocal basis between the
EU and Russia as well as a readmission agreement, with Moscow pushing hard
for an arrangement that will go further than bilateral accords with individual
member states and constitute the first step towards a visa-free regime.68
Although Moscow has signed a border agreement with Estonia and is
negotiating a similar agreement with Latvia, much remains to be done.
Concluding a readmission agreement */the provisions of which need to be
agreed with third countries */and adopting a national programme of effective
control on non-EU external borders, cooperating with law enforcement agencies
and judicial establishments of the EU, issuing its citizens with international
passports and strengthening passport procedures all add up to a massive
administrative and financial task for Moscow. Finding ‘flexibilities’ acceptable
to officials in all 25 member states alike which might constitute common ground
with Russian initiatives will equally be a considerable challenge for those in
186 D. Averre
charge of external policy in Brussels.69 Such is the scale of the task facing Russia,
and the continuing concerns of EU member states about the security risks of
throwing borders open to potential illegal migration70 */in Moscow’s eyes, often
exaggerated */that no firm promise from the EU is likely in the near future. The
tension (discussed extensively by scholars of EU enlargement71) between
Brussels’ goal of internal security, a ‘modernist’ project resting on the strict
and exclusive delimitation of external borders, and the more open project of
external security in which inclusive relations with Russia are crucial to cement
the latter’s European orientation, is far from being resolved.
What Next for Brussels’ Neighbourhood Policy?

With both sides keen to demonstrate the viability of the strategic partnership it
was easy to predict that an agreement on the common spaces would be reached
at the May 2005 EU /Russia summit. It is much less easy to anticipate
the evolution of the political and security situation in their common
neighbourhood, however. Would failure to reach a workable agreement over
a common external security space lead to polarisation, to the divergence of ‘two
systems’ represented by the EU and a Russia-centric CIS */the latter with a
high degree of cultural, legal, institutional and economic integration */and
threaten the neighbourhood policy process of normative convergence with the
EU?
To a large extent this depends on how far Brussels is prepared to go in
pursuit of a neighbourhood policy which it has been careful to leave open-
ended. At the launch of the ENP Michael Emerson asked whether it was meant
to be merely a set of pragmatic measures to mitigate the effects of enlargement,
or a serious attempt to promote ‘Europeanisation’ in the neighbouring
countries as part of a strategic framework for security in a wider Europe */a
sign of the EU’s evolution as a major foreign policy actor.72 This question
became more urgent with the victory of Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukrainian
presidential elections at the end of 2004 and Kyiv’s promotion of a strategic
pro-European integration course. One group of experts has argued that ‘the
Orange Revolution poses a fundamental challenge for the EU . . . European
leaders now have to confront with the utmost seriousness the demand from
Ukraine of being acknowledged as a candidate for EU membership’.73 At the
time of the elections diplomatic support for Yushchenko from Brussels, while
important in itself, was accompanied only by ‘firm sympathy’ for Ukraine and
the usual equivocation and arm’s length demands for convergence.74 The
Commission has since made more positive statements, recognising Ukraine’s
claims and promising to address the issue of the high cost of adaptation to
European models.75 However, with the Ukrainian government pushing
for something more than ‘neighbour’ status */an unofficial ‘road map’ in
addition to the Action Plan which would include negotiations on Ukraine’s
eventual accession to the EU,76 apparently supported by the European
Parliament77 */the further fragmentation of the political map in the EU’s

neighbourhood presents a significant challenge to Brussels.
The negative reaction of Moscow, aiming where possible to integrate the CIS
according to its own models as a legitimate basis for influence, underlined the
extent of the challenge Moscow too faces. Putin was careful to present his
concern not in terms of Yushchenko’s rivalry with Viktor Yanukovich */widely
seen as Moscow’s candidate */but in terms of the risk of destabilisation on
Russia’s periphery arising from ‘extraparliamentary and illegal’ political
processes. The fear of isolation was a dominant factor, however; as well as
launching a bitter tirade against Brussels’ ‘destabilising’ attempts to ‘impose
democracy from outside . . . to the detriment of democratic values’78 foreign
minister Lavrov criticised European leaders for ‘attempting to isolate Russia . . .
this may have fatal consequences for a united Europe’.79 As authoritative
commentators have argued, the weakness of integration processes in the CIS
demonstrates that Russia, unlike the EU, does not provide an attractive model
for modernisation, leaving Moscow reliant on authoritarian elites in these
states.80 The sustained commitment of Ukraine and other CIS countries */
Moldova and Georgia are also proclaiming a pro-Europe strategy */to EU
normative models would, assuming an appropriate response on the part of
Brussels, further weaken Russia’s attraction.
Brussels’ support for Ukraine and Moldova*/with the active involvement of
new EU member states, a considerable irritant to Moscow81 */and recommen-
dation to intensify relations with the South Caucasus through Action Plans82
suggest that the EU is seeking a long-term strategy. Its commitment to these
relatively weak states, which still face considerable difficulties, will have to be
both extensive and sustained to effect the kind of transformation that would
underpin integration into Europe. This is unlikely to be enough without
cooperation with Moscow, however, particularly over the issue of ‘frozen
conflicts’. Experience hitherto has not been encouraging. Moscow, under
pressure to implement political commitments made at the 1999 Istanbul
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) summit to
withdraw forces from Abkhazia and Transnistria, has made clear its resentment
over Brussels’ rejection in November 2003 of the initiative contained in the
Kozak Memorandum to bring about a settlement in the Moldova/Transnistria
conflict, accepted in principle by the parties concerned, and over Chisinau’s
‘provocative’ attempts to force a settlement in disregard of the international
negotiating process.83 As a result Brussels’ tentative attempts to persuade
Moscow to intervene in the crisis in summer 2004 predictably came to nothing.
More recently Brussels appears to be stepping up its contacts with the Moldovan
government, but the conflict remains intractable.
Concern about the political pressure being applied by Tbilisi on Abkhazia
and South Ossetia has also prompted Moscow to voice criticism of Brussels’
position on Georgia, pointing out that Russian peacekeepers have prevented
armed conflict in support of a peaceful solution which would allow minorities
188 D. Averre
the rights of national identity and autonomy within a sovereign Georgia.84

The EU did not respond to the Georgian government’s request to send a
monitoring mission to Georgia to replace the OSCE mission which ended on
1 January 2005. Moscow and Tbilisi have since reached agreement on a
timetable for the withdrawal of Russian forces by 2008. As in the Moldovan
case, EU /Russia cooperation over Georgia has been modest to say the least.
There are evidently limits to a more active EU role in the post-Soviet space.
It has been argued that strengthening the pan-European multilateral frame-
work by adapting the role of the OSCE to meet new challenges would preserve
an important part of the post-Cold War institutional basis for Russia’s
integration into Europe.85 Moscow has in recent years been highly critical of
the OSCE for concentrating largely on monitoring human rights and
democracy at the expense of its original role as a forum for political dialogue
and decision-making on European security matters, and for focusing on
countries in the post-Soviet space; this reflects its increasing reluctance to
accept the imposition of norms by European organisations.86 Indeed, Moscow
is seeking a leading role in creating these norms and has put forward proposals,
with the support of some CIS countries, to reform and upgrade the OSCE to
create a ‘fully-fledged’ collective security organisation, with decision-making
competence in some political /military areas, capable of dealing with what it
sees as common security challenges.87
There appears to be some common ground between Brussels and Moscow on
the continuing utility of the OSCE. The road map for the common space of
external security promises a role for it in conflict prevention and crisis
management; it can certainly offer a valuable framework for negotiations on
security issues and for putting together missions to monitor conflicts and
sponsor crisis settlement. However, there must be considerable doubt whether,
in view of the dual enlargements and their developing relations with non-
member states (and indeed the mechanisms they have put in place for
interaction with Russia), the EU and NATO, as Europe’s key organisations,
will agree to enhanced decision-making competence for the OSCE. The failure
of the OSCE ministerial in Sofia in December 2004 reflected the absence of
common views between Russia and its European partners over a new
architecture of European security.
While there is an important role for multilateral organisations such as the
OSCE and the Council of Europe, ultimately Moscow must forge a deeper
security relationship with the EU, with the development of ESDP potentially
the key security actor in Europe. Brussels has yet to maximise the potential of
ESDP in crisis management and other key security issues88 and has been
reluctant to reinforce partnership and cooperation mechanisms with Russia.
The two sides need urgently to address ways of moving from consultation to
joint initiatives and, eventually, some kind of joint decision-making
arrangements */albeit initially limited*/on specific issues. The lack of any
reference to ESDP in the road map for the common space of external security
suggests that there is a long way to go.
Rethinking the Limits of Russia’s ‘Europeanisation’

As this paper has tried to make clear, despite current difficulties both Europe
and Russia recognise the need for constructive engagement to meet common
challenges. Moscow’s current agenda for EU /Russia relations reflects a high
degree of continuity and promises convergence in key areas of policy: creating
an open and integrated market, with Brussels’ support for Russian accession to
the WTO, as a basis for development of a common economic space; formation
of a common space of external security based on a shared approach to the
international order and close consultation on foreign and security policy; and
further cooperation on issues which fall within the framework of the common
space of freedom, security and justice, including instituting a visa-free regime.
The Putin administration appreciates the risks inherent in allowing the
development of two discrete systems centred on Brussels and Moscow, with
the potential conflict of interest over the common neighbourhood; this would
contradict the pro-Western engagement strategy which has been an important
achievement of Putin’s tenure so far. It also understands that a Russia isolated
from mainstream European political and economic developments would be
weak across most contemporary indices of security. Official statements */
mirroring EU rhetoric in the neighbourhood policy */emphasise Moscow’s
concern with establishing its own ‘belt of good neighbourliness which the [CIS]
countries represent’89 as a guarantee against transnational security threats to
which it is only too vulnerable. Chizhov has stated that, while the EU’s
neighbourhood policy should not hinder integration processes in the post-
Soviet space, it could become for those CIS countries signing up to it a
‘connecting link in the mutual reinforcement of integration processes across the
external borders of the European Union’:90
The vector of development of the CIS is its transformation from a

regional organisation into a fully-fledged integrated union [oriented]
towards multilevel, multispeed integration, while retaining the possibility
for manoeuvre for those states preferring to refrain from closer
engagement with certain areas of integration within the Commonwealth
. . . Ukraine and Moldova, for example, have declared the ‘European
choice’, and even the prospect of joining the EU, a priority, which in no
way prevents these countries from developing multilateral interaction
within the CIS framework on a pragmatic basis. We do not see any
internal contradiction in this position.91
Beneath the headline shared values and common interests, however, there
appear to be increasingly divergent views as to what their application means in
190 D. Averre
practice, undermining further movement towards a common culture of security.

Chizhov’s idea of two interlocking, overlapping systems ignores the fact that
Brussels is constitutionally, and perhaps philosophically, incapable of accepting
divergence from its norms and values. The question of how the EU could
accommodate countries like Ukraine and Moldova in the case of their
integration in a CIS strongly influenced by Moscow */which rejects the
wholesale imposition of EU norms and values*/remains unanswered. The
search for an inclusive common external security space is currently obstructed
by the exclusive practices stemming from the integrationist logic in both the
‘European project’ and Putin’s ‘CIS project’. As one pro-European Russian
commentator points out, ‘while supporting the course of democratisation in
Russia and acknowledging the importance of its Eastern neighbour, the EU has
consistently avoided the question of Russia’s place in an integrating Europe’.92
While Moscow is likely to continue the strategy of engagement initiated under
Putin it is clear that Brussels must reappraise the nature and extent of Russia’s
Europeanisation and rethink its policies accordingly. Putin still recognises the
need, as well as for security cooperation across the wider Europe, for
modernisation based on certain basic shared values and freedoms for society
and the individual. However, common interests will be offset by only partial
convergence with EU norms and limited progress in establishing fully
democratic institutions, a flourishing civil society, transparent economy and
free media along European lines. Putin’s drive for modernisation will coexist
with, and indeed will largely depend on, strengthening sovereignty and
statehood */in Moscow’s eyes not only a key guarantee of internal security
but also, given Russia’s putative role as the focus of ‘integration processes’ in the
CIS, the linchpin of security and stability in the post-Soviet space */and a search
for specifically Russian solutions to the country’s problems. These are,
essentially, Moscow’s new terms for the strategic partnership; what might be
summed up as pragmatic cooperation and selective integration. The EU’s
attention will have to be directed towards painstaking dialogue and consulta-
tion, and where possible joint approaches, based on a better understanding of
Russian security concerns, to relations with countries in their common
neighbourhood, without allowing Moscow to dominate or obstruct the
neighbourhood policy agenda. For Brussels, balancing bilateral dialogue with
Moscow and the pursuit of its interests in the neighbouring countries to the east
will call for a high-wire act of some delicacy. At the time of writing in May 2003
Javier Solana’s most recent keynote article in the Russian press93 suggest that
Brussels appreciates the new realism permeating relations with Moscow.
Nowhere is this bilateral dialogue more at odds than over the conflict in
Chechnya, the subject of even bitterer discord following the Beslan massacre.
Moscow’s deep frustration over the ‘double standards’ of a Europe unable or
unwilling to understand Russia’s position has been repeatedly expressed by
Lavrov, who again rejected suggestions of political negotiations with the Chechen
separatist leadership and */perhaps to deflect attention from the evidence of
corruption and mismanagement in Russia’s North Caucasus */attempted to

muddy the waters by hinting at a link between Georgia’s ‘provocation’ of unrest in
South Ossetia and the events in Beslan.94 Moscow’s explicit attack on any
manifestations of sympathy with Chechen separatists */particularly the practice
of granting them exile or broadcasting their views, which it considers ‘in no way
compatible with common human morality and the values of a democratic
society’95 */has been accompanied by a robust defence of Russia’s tactics to
counter terrorism, ‘taking into account tradition, culture and national peculia-
rities’.96 As Dov Lynch suggests, ‘the greater securitization of policy [since
Beslan] sits uneasily with the second element of Putin’s vision since 2000: the
imperative of domestic modernization to revitalize the country and external
engagement to create a predictable international setting’.97 With the precondi-
tions for a wider settlement which might bring about a cessation of hostilities */
Moscow’s agreement to international mediation, a clear set of political aims and
an international coalition capable of acting98 */absent, the EU is left in the
uneasy position of supporting Moscow’s aims, if not its methods, of enforcing a
political solution to minimise the effects of the conflict and prevent the spread of
instability across the North Caucasus subregion. The May 2005 summit
conclusions state that ‘the leaders of the EU and Russia addressed in a
constructive spirit internal developments in the EU and Russia, including the
situation in Chechnya’,99 effectively an acceptance by Brussels that the conflict is
an internal Russian matter and, despite its criticism of Russian policy, that it must
delink Chechnya from other items on the bilateral agenda.
Conclusions
In the face of Moscow’s fear of a de facto new, post-Cold War division of the
European continent and, at the same time, its rejection of further integration
into a Europe dominated by Brussels, the EU faces a massive challenge to
further its eastern neighbourhood policy. The enlargement of the EU and its
evolution as a foreign and security policy actor represent a fundamental and
ongoing transformation of the European political map, its ambition demon-
strated in the inclusion in the ENP of the countries of the South Caucasus. The
interconnected challenges of consolidating security to the East while projecting
influence via the promotion of norms of governance*/into states presenting a
considerable diversity of political and security problems */are complicated by
the clear refusal of Moscow to allow Russia to become, in Chizhov’s words, an
‘object’ of Brussels’ external policy and by its insistence that its own strategic
interests in the CIS are taken into account. The common spaces format
addresses the first of these difficulties, allowing Moscow to claim ‘equality’ in
the partnership, but interpreting and responding to Russian interests remains
highly problematic for Brussels.
While the ENP created a far-reaching framework for deeper integration of the
eastern neighbours into Europe, its ability to transform the EU’s normative
192 D. Averre
power of attraction into effective leverage to shape the external environment

remains in doubt. Uncertainty over whether the EU has the political will for more
robust intervention in security flashpoints on its eastern borders may well
encourage Moscow to exert its own political and economic levers of influence and
continue its involvement in the frozen conflicts in Moldova and Georgia. Alyson
Bailes has pointed out Europe’s weakness in the face of continuing instability:
Looking to the future, there is much talk . . . of the enlarged EU’s

responsibility to spread stability beyond its borders, but no sign of viable
EU plans to end the various ‘frozen conflicts’ in the Western CIS area . . .
the fundamental political question of whether the EU can afford to
intervene either against or with the Russians has not been squarely
confronted, let alone resolved . . . If the EU’s new neighbourhood is the
Europeans’ new strategic ‘backyard’, there is no guarantee yet that they
will wield a better broom to keep it clean than they did in the old
‘backyard’ of the Balkans.100
If, as Lynch suggests, the EU is in fact ‘emerging as a strategic actor in relation

to Russia . . . willing to act in pursuit of its interests and increasingly able to do
so’,101 it faces a Russia equally resolved to pursue its own strategic interests.
Reinforcing dialogue with Moscow on security issues in the common
neighbourhood, separating this from concerns over Russia’s own internal
development, represents the maximum achievable in the short to medium term.
The challenge to Moscow */acutely aware of its lack of a strategy and
consequent failure over the last decade to influence the transformation of the
European political map */is no less fundamental. Putin himself has under-
scored the importance of reconciling two principal priorities in Russian foreign
policy: the need to cement Russia’s position at the core of a more integrated
CIS while keeping the door open to Europe:
We still make insufficient use [in the CIS] of the reserves of influence
available to us, including reserves such as historically established credits
of trust, friendship and the close ties which bind our peoples together. The
absence of an effective Russian policy in the CIS or even an unjustified
pause will inevitably entail nothing more than energetic occupation of this
political space by other, more active states . . . But what we should not do
is to be diverted by the maxim that nobody except Russia has the right to
claim leadership across the CIS space . . .
Our other traditional priority is of course Europe. The latest wave of
EU and NATO enlargement has created a new geopolitical situation on
the continent, and we now have not so much to adapt to it as, first,
minimise potential risks and damage to the security of Russia’s economic
interests and, second, discover its advantages and in fact turn them to our
benefit. And here there is no other way than to build up equal
cooperation with the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.102
The tension between geopolitical rivalry, implicit in Putin’s words and deeply
embedded in Russian foreign policy thinking, and the need for closer
engagement with the EU is the main hurdle to moving on from the current
pragmatic approach to institute a ‘shared vision’ for the wider Europe. This
represents much more than what Verheugen called ‘challenges of readjust-
ment’103 for Moscow; it represents, perhaps, a greater challenge than the end of
the Cold War in terms of reassessing interests and changing traditional
approaches in key areas of policy-making */a genuine strategic challenge.
Failure to respond to this challenge would leave the EU/Russia ‘strategic
partnership’, with its common space of external security, looking distinctly
threadbare and, perhaps, threaten important elements of the EU’s neighbour-
hood policy. Putin’s recent pronouncements suggest a more mature foreign
policy approach and a readiness to be flexible; it remains to be seen, if Brussels
makes a more concerted attempt to influence political developments in the CIS,
just how flexible he is prepared to be. Moscow is seeking a predictable
environment in which to pursue its foreign policy and domestic modernisation
agenda at a time when events in its immediate neighbourhood are unpredictable
and the status quo is unravelling before its very eyes.
The emerging foreign policy discourse in Moscow, while steering clear of a
retreat into isolationism or confrontation, should alarm policy-makers in
Brussels. Russia’s vulnerability to the kind of contemporary threats which are
described in the European Security Strategy was laid bare in the Beslan school
siege. However, whereas in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 these threats
provided the rationale for a potentially far-reaching security partnership
between Russia and the West, EU criticism of Russian policy in the wake of
Beslan104 has engendered a different discourse. Lavrov’s comments reflect the
bitterness felt by many in the Russian political establishment:
I have a simple answer: it is double standards. I will only add what our
President said [in Putin’s post-Beslan address to the nation]: ‘The weak
get beaten.’ But we are becoming stronger. Everybody can sense this . . .
Yes, we have partners, but there are some in those countries who do not
wish us well. Not because we are bad, not because we are not liked, but
because the world is a complex place . . . the contemporary world is rather
a cruel place.
In the same interview Lavrov even linked current criticism of Russia with the
country’s former isolation: ‘Today Policy is being made by the same people who
were active functionaries in the ‘‘Cold War’’ era.’105 This new discourse is
arousing concern among progressive commentators in Russia who, while
recognising the crude and ineffective nature of Moscow’s policy in Chechnya
194 D. Averre
and the North Caucasus, are warning of the threat to the post-11 September
coalition and even suggesting that the West must recognise the difficult security
environment in which Russia finds itself: ‘It sometimes seems that the problem
lies in the fact that . . . a normative approach [to Russia] predominates. An
historical approach would be more appropriate.’106
The normative aspect of the EU’s agenda */with all its political, legal and
humanitarian ramifications */will continue to be highly problematic in rela-
tions with a Russian administration which is becoming ever more resentful of
interference in its internal affairs and more assertive in promoting Russian
interests. Lavrov’s angry response to European criticism of Putin’s post-
Beslan political reforms was typical of the current mood: ‘Since when have
the internal decisions of a sovereign state, taken within the framework of its
Constitution, to strengthen the power and integrity of the country . . . served as
grounds for confrontation with it and almost for stirring up a new international
crisis?’107
The vision of a strong and self-reliant sovereign state ready to defend its vital
interests from both direct attack and political encroachment, when considered
together with Moscow’s refusal to become the object of the EU’s ‘civilising
influence’ and assertion of its own values and identity, suggests deliberate self-
exclusion from an integrating Europe. Indeed, the EU’s interpretation of
‘European’ values is being increasingly questioned in the official Russian
discourse. In the aftermath of Ukraine’s ‘Orange revolution’ Lavrov again
attacked the EU’s ‘double standards’ with respect to democracy: ‘No less
damage to the universalisation of democratic principles is caused by attempts,
under the banner of ‘‘defending democracy’’, to interfere crudely in the internal
affairs of other countries and exert political pressure on them. . . this merely
discredits democratic values, turning them into small change for the attainment
of selfish geostrategic interests’.108 As Putin made clear in his April 2005
address to the Federal Assembly, Russia ‘while observing generally accepted
democratic norms, will itself decide how */taking into account its historical,
geopolitical and other specific features*/it can guarantee the realisation of the
principles of freedom and democracy’; indeed, these principles are to be
extended to guide ‘the civilising mission of the Russian nation on the Eurasian
continent’.109 Chizhov has spoken pointedly about the EU’s ‘counterproductive
attempts to place the young post-Soviet democracies before a false dilemma */
either forward to happiness and prosperity with the West or back into the
darkness with Russia’.110 A different set of assumptions now governs Russia’s
relations with the EU; as a result the possibilities for deeper partnership,
including common approaches to the CIS, have narrowed substantially.
Brussels may well have to deal with a Russia whose purely instrumental
approach to foreign and security policy, robust response to terrorism and
preoccupation with strengthening its positions in regions and countries where it
has security and economic interests take precedence over international
cooperation, let alone integration, at any price.
Progressive commentators in Russia agree that genuine equal partnership is

impossible without solving internal problems, cementing political and eco-
nomic reform and building an effective civil society in Russia; without moving
normatively closer to Europe Russia still has the potential to cause problems,
first and foremost in the EU/Russia common neighbourhood. It cannot be
ruled out that in the future the ‘values gap’ between European and Russian
elites may narrow as part of the process of political and economic adjustment
which partnership implies. However, the current drive to strengthen state
power, accepted by the majority of Russian political elites as necessary both as
an instrument for national reconstruction and as a corrective to the disorder of
the Yeltsin years, produces neither the internal stimulus to reform nor the
external point of reference which would allow multifaceted engagement with
Europe, especially in the context of a changing international system and
developing notions of sovereignty. As one authoritative commentator argues,
‘the divergence between Russia and a united Europe is structurally determined.
Europe’s aim is the erosion of national states, the removal of territorial barriers
and the formation of a new community . . . Russia orders itself differently,
continuing to place emphasis on a powerful state, territory and sovereignty,
accentuating military power*/in short, on old geopolitical features’.111
Despite Putin’s ‘strategic shift’ to a pro-Western engagement policy and
recognition of the importance of cooperation with Europe, the internal Russian
consensus, apart from a narrow section of liberal opinion, does not favour
deeper convergence with EU models. Instead, ‘pro-Kremlin conservatism’
intent on preserving the status quo and relying heavily on the regime’s
interpretation of national interests prevails, often with the tacit support of
elites in European countries.112 This jeopardises effective partnership aimed at
stability, good governance and joint resolution of conflicts in the EU’s other
neighbouring territories to the east which */an opinion shared by many
commentators */‘will only come with or after the deepened Europeanisation
of Russia itself’.113 With this process increasingly prone to failure, how the EU
manages its largest eastern neighbour will be a problematic item on its foreign
policy agenda for the next few years */and possibly beyond.
Notes
1
Russia / WTO: EU /Russia Deal Brings Russia a Step Closer to WTO Membership, IP/04/673,
Brussels, 21 May 2004, at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/russia/intro/
ip04_673.htm (accessed 14 June 2004).
2
European Neighbourhood Policy, Strategy Paper, Communication from the Commission
COM(2004) 373 final, Brussels, 12 May 2004 (English text), at http://www.europa.eu.int/
comm/world/enp/pdf/strategy/Strategy_Paper_EN.pdf (accessed 7 June 2004).
3
See May 2003 summit Joint Statement at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/
russia/sum05_03/js.htm (accessed June 2003).
4
Joint press conference on the results of the Russia /EU summit, The Hague, 25 November 2004,
at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/59A29794DC304295C3256F58002507DC (accessed 13
December 2004).
196 D. Averre
5
Vladimir Chizhov, deputy minister for foreign affairs responsible for relations with Europe,
has emphasised that ‘the aim of the CIS is to assist the ‘‘soft’’ inclusion of its member states
into the process of globalisation by unifying the economic, financial, intellectual and
technological resources which the Commonwealth countries possess. The vector of CIS
development lies in its transformation from a regional organisation into a fully-fledged
integrated union’; ‘European Union and CIS: New Outline for Cooperation’, speech at the
Berlin forum ‘Vision of Europe’, Berlin, 19 November 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/
sps/5F7BABB5DE650EA5C3256F520055371A (accessed 13 December 2004). As well as the CIS
itself the main vehicles for integration are the Single Economic Space, involving Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Kazakhstan; the Eurasian Economic Union, incorporating Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation which
brings together most CIS countries.
6
Discussions with UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, 13 January 2005.
7
See V.A. Chizhov, ‘Russia and the EU: Strategic Partnership’, Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’ ,
9 September 2004 at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/830C44C0D41BF21AC3256F1D002
23C9E (accessed 25 October 2004). Meetings in other formats take place on an ad hoc informal
basis; 25 / 1 meetings have already taken place in some ‘branch’ areas of dialogue together with
‘operative dialogue’ with the troika or other combinations of interested member states,
Commission and Council of the EU.
8
As Tat’yana Parkhalina argues, enhanced PPC mechanisms with the EU do not have same effect
as NATO /Russia Council arrangements since a complex bureaucratic web of trade, economic
and financial rules rather than political bargaining drives EU policy; ‘EU /Russia relation
complicated by the Union’s enlargement’; Kreml’.org politicheskaya ekspertnaya set’ , 7 April
2004, at http://www.kreml.org/decisions/51765639/ (accessed 19 April 2004).
9
D. Danilov, ‘Relations between Russia and the EU Need to be put on a Strategic Footing’,
Kreml’.org politicheskaya ekspertnaya set’ .
10
D. David, ‘Russie/UE: une culture de securité commune?’, paper at conference Die erweiterte
Europäische Union und ihre neuen Nachbarn. Wirtschaftliche, politische und soziale Her-
ausforderungen, Vilnius, 14 /15 October 2004, reproduced at http://www.oefz.at/fr/Vilnius_04/
Interventions/David.pdf (accessed 3 November 2004).
11
A. Rahr, ‘With each passing day Russia and the EU need each other more and more’,
Rossiiskaya gazeta , 26 October 2004, p. 13.
12
See in particular O. Antonenko and K. Pinnick (eds), Russia and the European Union (Abingdon
and New York; Routledge/IISS 2005); D. Johnson and P. Robinson (eds), Perspectives on EU-
Russia Relations (Abingdon and New York: Routledge Europe and the Nation State series
2005);V. Baranovsky, Russia’s Attitude Towards the EU: Political Aspects, Programme on the
Northern Dimension of the CFSP (Helsinki/Berlin: The Finnish Institute for International
Affairs/Institut für Europäische Politik 2002); D. Lynch, Russia faces Europe, Chaillot Paper no.
60 (Paris, EU Institute for Security Studies, May 2003).
13
The author has benefited greatly from recent participation in three projects which have involved a
number of leading Russian, European and US specialists on EU /Russia relations; first, the
Finnish Institute for International Affairs ‘Russia’s European Choice’, led by Arkady Moshes
and Hiski Haukkala and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of
Transport via the Finnish Academy; second, a workshop for a forthcoming edited book by
Jackie Gower and Graham Timmins hosted by the University of Stirling in June 2004; and, third,
UK /Russia policy support seminars funded by the UK FCO and MOD and organised by Sir
David Logan of the Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy, University of Birmingham,
and Professor Dmitrii Danilov of the Institute of Europe, Moscow. Thanks are also due to Dr
Olga Potemkina of the Institute of Europe and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.
14
Wider Europe */Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern
Neighbours, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament,
COM(2003) 104 final, Brussels 11 March 2003 (English text) at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/
world/enp/pdf/com03_104_en.pdf (accessed December 2003), p. 3.
15
European Neighbourhood Policy, Strategy Paper, p. 4. For background on the evolution of the
ENP see D. Lynch, ‘From ‘‘Frontier’’ Politics to ‘‘Border’’ Policies between the EU and Russia’,
in Antonenko and Pinnick (eds), Russia and the European Union , pp. 21 /2.
16
Ibid., p. 5 (emphasis added).
17
Ibid., p. 3.
18
M. Emerson, ‘The Shaping of a Policy Framework for the Wider Europe’, Centre for European
Policy Studies Policy Brief no. 39 , September 2003, p. 2.
19
See for example speech by Chizhov at conference ‘Wider Europe: Strengthening Transborder
Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe’, Kiev, 10 November 2003, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/
brp_4.nsf/sps/65AAD64C4BBC6E3D43256DDB0035165F (accessed 31 August 2004).
20
Wider Europe */Neighbourhood , p. 7.
21
‘The EU at our Gates’, interview with deputy foreign minister V.A. Chizhov in Itogi , 27 April
2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/79202193CE14FA24C3256E83002C2B8F (accessed
11 May 2004); Chizhov, ‘Russia and the EU: Strategic Partnership’.
22
Speech by deputy foreign minister V.A. Chizhov at conference ‘Enlarging Europe: The New
Agenda’, Bratislava, 19 March 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/67D6F86FA4
BAF9AEC3256E5D004D0963 (accessed 11 May 2004).
23
Speech by deputy foreign minister V.A. Chizhov at conference ‘Common Aims and Challenges of
EU and Russian Foreign Policy’, Berlin, 23 February 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/
sps/083FC6077C6D7D24C3256E43005E63D2 (accessed 27 February 2004).
24
Speech by Chizhov at conference ‘Wider Europe: Strengthening Transborder Cooperation in
Central and Eastern Europe’.
25
Chizhov, ‘Russia and the EU: Strategic Partnership’.
26
Notably reports on debates organised by Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov of the Committee
‘Russia in a United Europe’; see The Current State of EU /Russia Relations and other reports at
http://www.rue.ru/publications_e.htm.
27
S.A. Karaganov (ed.), Relations between Russia and the European Union: Current Situation and
Prospects, report by the Council of Foreign and Defence Policy, Moscow 2005, pp. 16 /17.
28
F. Luk’yanov, ‘State of the Border’, Vremya novostei , 9 December 2003.
29
A. Drabkin, ‘No Global Stability without a Strong Russia’, Pravda , 2 June 2005, p. 3 (interview
with Yu. Kvitsinskii, deputy of the Communist Party of the RF and first deputy chairman of the
Duma International Affairs Committee).
30
‘Five Questions without an Answer’, Sovetskaya Rossiya , 20 May 2004 (interview with
Kvitsinskii). One leading Russian analyst notes that these attitudes can be traced back to the
Soviet period when the European Community was seen as ‘the economic extension of the
military bloc of countries of the capitalist West’, and that in general ‘[in] the 1990s, the European
issue was not among the subjects of interest to the Russian political elite or media; expert
opinion on the issue remained limited and practically uncalled for’; T. Bordachev, ‘Russia’s
European Problem: Eastward Enlargement of the EU and Moscow’s Policy, 1993 /2003’, in
Antonenko and Pinnick (eds), Russia and the European Union , pp. 56 /7.
31
Comments by Aleksandr Prokhanov in ‘A Plot against Russia?’, Argumenty i fakty, 8 June 2005,
p. 6.
32
A. Baunov, ‘How to Enter Europe’, at http://www.globalrus.ru/opinions/134824 (accessed 14
February 2005).
33
See N. Arbatova, ‘A New Treaty with the European Union is a Vital Necessity’, Nezavisimaya
gazeta , 15 November 2004, p. 14; D. Danilov, ‘Russia and European Security’, in D. Lynch (ed.),
What Russia Sees, Chaillot Paper no. 74 (Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, January 2005)
p. 90.
34
Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Relations
with Russia , COM(2004) 106, 9 February 2004 at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_re
lations/russia/russia_docs/com04_106_en.pdf (accessed 20 February 2004); Report with a
Proposal for a European Parliament Recommendation to the Council on EU /Russia Relations,
European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and
198 D. Averre
Defence Policy, rapporteur Bastiaan Belder, A5-0053/2004 final, 2 February 2004, at http://www.
europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF /-//EP//NONSGML/REPORT/A5-2004-0053/0/
DOC/PDF/V0//EN&L /EN&LEVEL/2&NAV /S&LSTDOC /Y (accessed 10 September
2004).
35
Europe in the World: CFSP and its Relation to Development , speech by the Rt Hon Chris Patten,
Overseas Development Institute, 7 November 2003 at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/exter-
nal_relations/news/patten/sp07_11_03.htm (accessed February 2004). The rules for decision-
making and the respective roles of the Commission for first pillar issues and of the Council for
CFSP are of course different, but are not the subject of this paper.
36
European Security Strategy: A Secure Europe in a Better World , Brussels, 12 December
2003 at http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cms_data/docs/2004/4/29/European%20Security%20Strategy.pdf
(accessed December 2003). The ENP emphasises its support for the objectives of the ESS and
states that those parts of the Action Plans relating to enhanced political cooperation and CFSP
‘have been worked on and agreed jointly by the services of the Commission and the High
Representative’ (p. 2); the latter will be involved in assessing progress made by neighbours in
fulfilling the Action Plans (p. 10). The ENP also commits the EU to increased efforts to settle
conflicts in its neighbourhood (p. 6); it also puts forward specific foreign and security policy
priorities which should form the basis for strengthened political dialogue with neighbours,
opening up the possibility for them to become involved in aspects of CFSP and ESDP (p. 13).
Finally, the Council accepted the Commission’s recommendation that Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan be included in the neighbourhood strategy in line with the ESS’s emphasis on the
South Caucasus as a region in which the EU should take a ‘stronger and more active interest’
(p. 10). A more coherent policy has been put into practice in Georgia, where the Council began
in July 2004 the deployment of an ESDP Rule of Law Mission at the same time as the
Commission pledged a doubling of humanitarian and other assistance over the 2004 /06 period;
see Rt Hon Chris Patten, SPEECH/04/301, at the Georgia’ Donors’ Conference, Brussels, 16
June 2004 at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/sp04_301.htm (ac-
cessed 1 July 2004) and address by Javier Solana at the Conference of Ambassadors, Budapest,
27 July 2004, S0206/04 at http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/discours/
81579.pdf (accessed 31 August 2004).
37
See A.J.K. Bailes, The European Security Strategy: An Evolutionary History, SIPRI Policy Paper
no. 10 (Stockholm: International Peace Research Institute, February 2005) pp. 9, 23; Michael
Emerson, The Wider Europe Matrix (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies 2004) p. 14.
38
EU /Russia Summit Joint Statement , 6 November 2003, annex IV, at http://www.europa.eu.int/
comm/external_relations/russia/summit11_03/4concl.pdf (accessed December 2003).
39
Chizhov, ‘European Union and CIS: New Outline for Cooperation’.
40
See The European Union and the United Nations: The Choice of Multilateralism , Communication
from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, COM(2003) 526 final,
Brussels, 10 September 2003.
41
Nezavisimaya gazeta , 26 February 2004.
42
G. Verheugen, EU Enlargement and the Union’s Neighbourhood Policy, speech at the Diplomatic
Academy, Moscow, 27 October 2003, at http://www.eur.ru/en/news_90.htm (accessed 15 April
2004; emphasis in original).
43
Russian diplomats */continuing the foreign policy approach of the 1990s */are reported still to
be concentrating on a ‘hard nucleus of Europe’ in which Moscow’s bilateral relations with Paris
and Berlin are used as the key forum to discuss European security issues; G. Sysoev, ‘Geopolitics.
Return of the Politburo’, Kommersant-Daily, 2 April 2004. See also Bordachev, ‘Russia’s
European Problem . . .’, in Antonenko and Pinnick (eds), Russia and the European Union , pp.
53 /4.
44
Report with a Proposal for a European Parliament Recommendation to the Council on EU /Russia
Relations, pp. 8, 10, 20.
45
Speech by the Rt Hon Chris Patten, European Parliament Plenary Strasbourg, speech
04/398, 15 September 2004, at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/
sp04_398.htm (accessed 1 November 2004).
46
An interview with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in which he ‘refused to discredit’ Putin’s
Chechnya policy and stressed the importance of the economic and security relationship with
Russia for Europe as a whole, was carried in the Russian daily Izvestiya , 9 October 2004; original
article ‘‘‘Ich habe nicht die Absicht, die Russland-Politik zu ändern’’’, Süddeutsche Zeitung , 1
October 2004, at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/deutschland/artikel/429/40389/3/ (accessed 14
February 2005). See also joint press conference on the outcome of the trilateral Franco-
German /Russian meeting, Sochi, 31 August 2004, at http://www.elysee.fr/magazine/deplace-
ment_etranger/sommaire.php?doc//documents/discours/2004/0408RU01.html (accessed 27
October 2004).
47
48
Speech by Russian President V.V. Putin at conference of Russian ambassadors and permanent
representatives, 12 July 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/D90D89CE3886993A-
C3256ED00022077A (accessed 19 August 2004).
49
The ENPI document is ambiguous, hinting at the withholding of assistance ‘where a partner
country fails to observe the principles referred to’ and, with reference to TACIS funding, stating
that ‘conditionality should be linked to ongoing reform efforts’ but recommending elsewhere that
‘the issue of political conditionality should be approached cautiously, on the basis of lessons
drawn from experience’; Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
laying down General Provisions Establishing a European Neighbourhood and Partnership
Instrument , Brussels, 29 September 2004, COM(2004) 628 final, 2004/0219 (COD), at http://
www.europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/getdoc_en.pdf, pp. 30, 31, 40 (accessed 10 November
2004).
50
Russia’s per capita share of TACIS assistance 2000 /2003 was only t4.16, compared with t10.70
for Moldova and t8.94 for Ukraine; European Neighbourhood Policy, Strategy Paper, Annex, pp.
30 /31. Emerson reports that development assistance per capita in the European neighbourhood
1995 /2002 was t246 for the Balkans, t23 for the Mediterranean and only t9 for the European
CIS, and points out that the more generous ENPI commitment still only constitutes Commission
proposals which some member states may try to revise downwards; European Neighbourhood
Policy: Strategy or Placebo? , working document no. 215 (Brussels: Centre for European Policy
Studies, November 2004), pp. 11 /12.
51
Speech by deputy foreign minister V.A. Chizhov at Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs seminar,
Helsinki, 9 June 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/695992DDA49271FCC3256
EAE00520CBE (accessed 19 August 2004).
52
As Hiski Haukkala argues, ‘the very logic of the [Northern Dimension] is alien to Russian
thinking about what kind of relationship is feasible with the EU’; ‘The Northern Dimension of
EU Foreign Policy’, in Antonenko and Pinnick (eds), Russia and the European Union , p. 39. See
also N. Smorodinskaya, ‘Russia /EU: Hanging by a Thread’, Vedomosti , 8 December 2004.
53
EU /Russia Summit Conclusions, Moscow, 10 May 2005, at http://europa.eu.int/comm/ext
ernal_relations/russia/summit_05_05/index.htm (accessed 25 June 2005).
54
D. Suslov, ‘Road Maps to Europe?’, Russia Profile, 9 June 2005, at http://www.russiaprofile.org/
international/article.wbp?article-id /2B6C3F04-CCED-46B6-960E-5CD84528BE11 (accessed
14 June 2005).
55
‘The Russia /EU Common Space of External Security: Ambitions and Reality’, Mirovaya
ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya , no. 2 (2005), p. 38.
56
‘In spite of progress mentioned in The Hague on the formation of four common spaces . . . there
is nothing like a partnership ‘‘based on common values and joint interests’’ . . . the Permanent
Joint Council simply hasn’t taken off. Moscow is striving not so much to bring its values closer as
to establish quickly the specific rules of its relationship with the EU’; Smorodinskaya, ‘Russia /
EU: Hanging by a Thread’.
200 D. Averre
57
Interview with Chizhov in RIA Novosti, 11 May 2005, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/
541A765D990F6F9AC32570010029B8C4 (accessed 24 May 2005).
58
D. Lynch, ‘Struggling with an Indispensable Partner’, in Lynch (ed.), What Russia Sees, p. 126.
59
Karaganov (ed.), Relations between Russia and the European Union: Current Situation and
Prospects, p. 19.
60
‘Russia-European Union: Prospects for Mutual Relations’, speech at international conference at
the RF foreign ministry Diplomatic Academy, 15 March 2005, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/
brp_4.nsf/sps/8BB496BAF0E70E23C3256FCF0063BB45 (accessed 24 May 2005).
61
Press conference with foreign ministry representative A.V. Yakovenko in connection with talks
with the EU troika, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/F002A60673C8BD3FC3256FB
50043B206 (accessed 28 February 2005).
62
N. Melikova, ‘’’These People have brought the Spirit of Primitive Russophobia into the EU’’’,
interview with Yastrembzhskii, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 17 November 2004.
63
These issues are discussed in a very frank interview by foreign minister Lavrov with the German
newspaper Handelsblatt ; Russian version at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/EF9786E28-
F588A53C3256F7E002DD9CD (accessed 28 February 2005).
64
‘Road Map for the Common Space of External Security’, pp. 42 /3, at http://www.europa.eu.int/
comm/external_relations/russia/summit_05_05/finalroadmaps.pdf#es.
65
Ibid., p. 22.
66
‘Not Crisis but Misunderstanding in our Relations with the EU’, interview with deputy foreign
minister V.A. Chizhov, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 22 March 2004.
67
See comments by Chizhov in The Current State of EU /Russia Relations, p. 18.
68
Moscow has proposed ‘at minimum’ that all 25 EU member states agree to reciprocal five-year
multi-entry visas along the lines of current arrangements with Germany; interview with V.A.
Chizhov in Welt am Sonntag , 21 November 2004, in Russian at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/
sps/A79ECCC6252C847CC3256F54005F6661 (accessed 13 December 2004).
69
Chizhov has stated that Romano Prodi mooted a date for a visa-free regime in the not too distant
future */media sources suggest 2008 */but that ‘cautious officials’ prevented it being written into
protocols; ‘The EU at our Gates’.
70
See J. Apap and A. Tchorbadjiyska, What about the Neighbours? The Impact of Schengen along
the EU’s External Borders, working document no. 210 (Brussels: Centre for European Policy
Studies, October 2004), pp. 1, 10.
71
On this see C. Browning, ‘The Internal/External Security Paradox and the Reconstruction of
Boundaries in the Baltic: The Case of Kaliningrad’, Alternatives 28/5 (2003), pp. 545 /81.
72
Two Cheers for the European Neighbourhood Policy (Brussels: Centre for European Policy
Studies, May 2004), at http://www.ceps.be/Article.php?article_id/338& (accessed 1 July 2004).
See note 18 above for Emerson’s definition of ‘Europeanisation’, which is broadly accepted here.
73
G. Gromadzki, O. Sushko, M. Wahl, K. Wolczuk and R. Wolczuk, Ukraine and the EU after the
Orange Revolution , policy brief no. 60 (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, December
2004), p. 3.
74
‘The question of Ukrainian entry into the EU is not on the agenda. But it is clear that we are not
closing any doors . . . Precisely because the EU has a strong interest in relations with the Ukraine,
we expect Ukraine to progress towards European values’; speech by Benita Ferrero-Waldner,
Commissioner for External Relations and the European Neighbourhood Policy, Plenary Session
of the European Parliament, Brussels, 1 December 2004, at http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/
external_relations/news/ferrero/2004/speech04_506_en.htm (accessed 13 December 2004).
75
B. Ferrero-Waldner article, Weekly Mirror, 19 February 2005, at http://www.delukr.cec.eu.int/
site/page34090.html (accessed 28 February 2005).
76
Yushchenko has expressed his hopes to the European Parliament ‘that before 2007 we can
conclude negotiations on Ukraine’s entry into the European Union’; S. Strokan, ‘Diplomacy.
Ukraine has overtaken America in Brussels’, Kommersant-Daily, 24 February 2005, p. 10.
77
European MEPs have called on ‘the Council, the Commission and the Member States to
consider, besides the measures of the Action Plan . . . other forms of association with Ukraine,
giving a clear European perspective for the country . . . possibly leading ultimately to the
country’s accession to the EU’; The European Parliament and Ukraine, Brussels, 26 January 2005,
at http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF/-//EP//TEXT/PRESS/BI-20050126-
1/0/DOC/XML/V0//EN&LEVEL/2&NAV /S (accessed 10 February 2005).
78
‘Democracy, International Governance and the Future World Order’, Rossiya v global’noi
politike 6 (2004), at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/CE2E42A30C8067BCC3256F770028
A612 (accessed 28 February 2005).
79
Interview with Handelsblatt.
80
See L. Shevtsova, ‘Russia in 2005: The Logic of Retreat. Main Trends in the Development of
Power, the Economy, Social and Foreign Policy’, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 25 January 2005, p. 1; S.
Karaganov, ‘The CIS and Unrecognised States’, Rossiiskaya gazeta , 3 June 2005.
81
Emerson refers to Poland’s support for Ukraine and the Baltic states’ initiatives, albeit as yet
modest, in the three South Caucasus states; European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy or
Placebo? , p. 16.
82
European Neighbourhood Policy: The Next Steps, IP/05/236, Brussels, 2 March 2005, at http://
www.europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/pdf/country/ip05_236_en.pdf (accessed 14 March 2005).
83
See statement by foreign ministry spokesman A.V. Yakovenko, 11 June 2005, at http://
www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/4F22FEBE28B09DADC3257020001FE079 (accessed 14 June
2005).
84
Speech by Russian foreign minister S.V. Lavrov at the 12th session of the Council of OSCE
foreign ministers, Sofia, 7 December 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/
90A9B219C0F99159C3256F63003A18B5 (accessed 13 December 2004); comments by Russian
foreign ministry information and press department regarding Europarliament’s resolution on
the situation in Georgia, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/561F8E02817F4B90C3256
F3400432706 (accessed 14 December 2004).
85
See Emerson, The Wider Europe Matrix , pp. 31 /2, 50 /51.
86
‘The OSCE should become a real organisation for cooperation in Europe and not an instrument
for democratisation of its irresponsible members, dividing its eastern European member states
into teachers and pupils. It appears that some states consider the OSCE a mechanism for
achieving their own political interests, primarily for bringing the post-Soviet space closer to what
are passed off as common values but which are really only the values of Western civilisation’;
interview of Chizhov with Vremya novostei . See also S. Lavrov, ‘Reform will Enhance the OSCE’s
Relevance’, Financial Times, 29 November 2004.
87
Speech by V.A. Chizhov at international round-table to mark 30th anniversary of the Helsinki
Final Act, Moscow, 2 June 2005, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/0D118D4CABF
B9600C3257014004CCC40 (accessed 14 June 2005).
88
As Emerson argues, ‘The EU . . . does not at the same time rationalise its participation in
(enduringly unsuccessful) mediation missions of the UN [in Georgia] and OSCE [in Moldova] . . .
The EU could do a lot for the credibility of its role as conflict solving actor if it showed more
resolve on the substance and clearer representation, rather than being mostly just a doctrinal
commentator on the sides’; European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy or Placebo? , p. 14.
89
A.V. Yakovenko, ‘Russia: The Course of Peace and Progress’, Vneshneekonomicheskie svyazi ,
10 (October 2004), at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/A7EFFF0065E7BD8CC3256F38003
E2251 (accessed 14 December 2004).
90
91
Chizhov, ‘European Union and CIS: New Outline for Cooperation’.
92
Arbatova, ‘A New Treaty with the European Union is a Vital Necessity’.
93
‘Without Encroaching on our Neighbours’ Sovereignty’, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 23 May 2005.
94
Interview of Russian foreign minister S.V. Lavrov with the Al-Jazeera television channel.
Moscow, 10 September 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/F46FB12EAF628774C3256
F0B005DD6EE (accessed 25 October 2004).
95
This was stated in relation to the UK’s granting of exile to Akhmed Zakaev and a Channel 4
transmission of an interview with Shamil Basaev, who is believed to have planned the Beslan
202 D. Averre
assault; ‘Announcement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 4 February 2005, at http://
www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/0B78CB0AC3D99068C3256F9E002E956D (accessed 28 February
2005).
96
Lavrov, ‘Democracy, International Governance and the Future World Order’.
97
D. Lynch, ‘‘‘The Enemy is at the Gate’’: Russia after Beslan’, International Affairs 81/1 (2005), p.
143.
98
See comments by James Sherr in a survey of Western opinion on Chechnya: ‘The EU and NATO
may turn Chechnya into Kosovo’, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 7 September 2004.
99
EU /Russia Summit Conclusions, 10 May 2005.
100
A.J.K. Bailes, ‘Is there a European Model of Security?’, unpublished paper, Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (emphasis in original).
101
‘Struggling with an Indispensable Partner’, in Lynch (ed.), What Russia Sees, pp. 116, 124.
102
Speech by Russian President V.V. Putin at conference of Russian ambassadors and
permanent representatives, Moscow, 12 July 2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/
D90D89CE3886993AC3256ED00022077A (accessed 19 August 2004).
103
Verheugen, EU Enlargement and the Union’s Neighbourhood Policy.
104
See Speech by the Rt Hon Chris Patten, European Parliament Plenary Strasbourg , 15 September
2004; Yu. Petrovskaya, ‘Javier Solana: ‘‘The Priority for us Remains a Political Settlement in
Chechnya’’’, Nezavisimaya gazeta , 27 September 2004.
105
Interview with Russian minister of foreign affairs S.V. Lavrov, Vremya novostei , 9 September
2004, at http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/A1541D9CFD06A222C3256F2C002BA754 (ac-
cessed 18 October 2004). Defence minister Sergei Ivanov has spoken in the same vein in a
newspaper interview: ‘Nobody has put it better than [tsar] Alexander III. As before we have two
allies */the army and navy. We live today in a cruel world . . . And the reliable defence of our
sovereignty can be guaranteed only by a strong army and navy and an efficient economy’;
‘Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov: If necessary we will carry out preventive strikes’,
Komsomol’skaya Pravda , 26 October 2004, p. 10.
106
D. Trenin, ‘Commentary. Beslan */New York: We Await a Reply’, Vedomosti , 16 September
2004.
107
‘There will be no return to the ‘‘Cold War’’’, interview with Sergei Lavrov, Izvestiya , 11 February
2005, p. 1.
108
Lavrov, ‘Democracy, International Governance and the Future World Order’. Chizhov has
summed up current thinking: ‘One may predict that at a certain stage of the all-European
process Russia will join the ranks of European economic integration. Though it is hard to
assume that it will ever lose its identity (samobytnost’ ); then we would be talking about a
different Russia, a different European Union and a new situation on the [European] continent
and in the world. At this moment the agenda of our relations with an expanded European Union
contains purely practical matters of strengthening the strategic partnership on an equal and
mutually beneficial basis’; ‘Russia and the EU: Strategic Partnership’.
109
‘Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation’, Moscow, 25 April 2005, at http://
president.kremlin.ru/text/appears/2005/04/87049.shtml (accessed 23 May 2005).
110
Speech at the Berlin forum ‘Vision of Europe’.
111
Shevtsova, ‘Russia in 2005 . . .’. A similar argument is advanced by Dominique David, ‘Russie/
UE: une culture de securité commune?’.
112
L. Shevtsova, The Moscow Times, 14 May 2004. See also Arbatova, ‘A New Treaty with the
European Union is a Vital Necessity’. Aleksei Pushkov describes Putin’s system as ‘moderate
political authoritarian rule and limited market liberalism . . . what we see in Russia in 2005 is a
qualitatively new development and reflects a deeply changed social and political reality’; ‘Putin
at the Helm’, in Lynch (ed.), What Russia Sees, p. 59.
113
Emerson, The Wider Europe Matrix , p. 60.

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European Security

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Russia and the European Union: Convergence or

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The ‘Common Spaces’: Filling or Perpetuating the Vacuum?

progress beyond a tentative commitment to ‘strengthen EU /Russian dialogue

What Next for Brussels’ Neighbourhood Policy?

Parliament77 */the further fragmentation of the political map in the EU’s

the rights of national identity and autonomy within a sovereign Georgia.84

Rethinking the Limits of Russia’s ‘Europeanisation’

The vector of development of the CIS is its transformation from a

practice, undermining further movement towards a common culture of security.

corruption and mismanagement in Russia’s North Caucasus */attempted to

power of attraction into effective leverage to shape the external environment

Looking to the future, there is much talk . . . of the enlarged EU’s

If, as Lynch suggests, the EU is in fact ‘emerging as a strategic actor in relation

Progressive commentators in Russia agree that genuine equal partnership is

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