Article by Federico Guerrieri. Photo by El Enigma/flickr

Until the 1980s, relations between the European Community and the Soviet Union were frozen in the Cold War. When Mikhail Gorbachev became Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, he introduced democratization as a key element of his radical reform program and the de-freezing of the relationship began. Gorbachev spoke about a community “united by the common heritage of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the great philosophical and social teachings of the 19th and 20th centuries”.

Democratization and normalization of the relations with the West were the main goals of the new General Secretary, therefore the USSR offered large-scale concessions to the West, in order to demonstrate the Kremlin adherence to the Western values. Western countries welcomed these transformations, therefore Gorbachev reached its objective of “changing the label applied to the Soviet Union by Western states”. When Russia gained sovereignty in 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “new state” immediately looked to the EU for recognition of its new Western identity. According to the constructivist viewpoint of Flemming Splidsboel-Hansen, “the existing in-group…decides whether applicant agents can be allowed to join”. “They do so by assessing the loyalty of the applicant towards the norms regulating of the particular group identity”. In other words, the Western countries would welcome Russia into the group, “redrawing the boundaries between us and them” only if Russia will accept the Western norms, especially the very pillars of democracy and market. In those years, EU and Russia signed several agreements and policy papers.

The “Partnership and Co-Operation Agreement” (PCA) was signed in 1994, and entered into force in December 1997 (the PCA expired in December 2007 and has not been renewed yet). The “Common Strategy of the European Union on Russia”, commonly known as “Common Strategy” opened up the possibility of “joint foreign policy initiatives”. Moscow was thrilled, because they obtained the possibility to participate in Western Europe Union mission and they saw the possibility to counterbalance the power of NATO in Europe. When the Second Chechen War broke out in 1999, the EU started questioning “the state of democracy, rule of law and civil society in Russia”. When, in 2000, Putin declared proudly that “our people have accepted…fundamental political rights and human liberties [and] value that they can have property [and] be engaged in free enterprise” the European Union reacted claiming that Russia had failed to act in accordance with its-self proclaimed identity.

The EU-Russia relations improved for a couple of years after September 11, 2001, because of the Russian partecipation in the war against terrorism which created a “common other”. Russia also took advantage of the situation to transform the war in Chechnya as a war on terror, thanks to the approval granted by the United States. Between 2003 and 2006, relations between the EU and Russia have been characterized by a period of stagnation. A reason of conflict is given by the fact that the EU has a pragmatic and technocratic approach, which underestimates the cultural and historical aspects typical of Eastern Europe. For example, when in April 2005 Putin declared that the fall of the USSR was the “greatest political catastrophe of the century”, many political exponents of the Union, especially those of the Eastern countries, reacted vehemently. But considering that Putin added that the collapse was a “genuine tragedy” for the Russian people, we can see that he just expressed the sentiment of the large majority of the Russian citizens.

Because the EU did not recognized the progress made by Russia, certain circles of the Russian elite started questioning the benefits of the post-cold war pro-western foreign policy, asking to turn to “romantic nationalism” instead. Situations as those of Kaliningrad and Transdnistria, which are considered by Russia as symbols of the victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, and are seen as problematic places by Europe, because of the presence of crumbling nuclear installations, prostitution, smuggling of drugs and weapons, make the relations between the European Union and Russia even more complicated.

Nevertheless, during his second term, Putin never lost any chance to recall that his country “is an integral part of European civilization” and “completely [shares] the fundamental values and principles that form most European’s vision of the world”. But the EU continue to consider Russia as a country with an imperfect democracy, where human rights are not respected and that acts for its own interest. During last Presidential election in Russia, President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso criticized the Russian electoral process claiming that opponents of President Medvedev did not enjoy enough space in the media.

Today, relations between the European Union and Russia are going through a period of depression, which reached its peaks with the conflict in Georgia and the gas crisis. The rise of nationalism and the low level of understanding showed by the EU, pushed the Kremlin to assume a less convinced pro-Western foreign policy in favor of a more nationalistic one. According to Gomart, “Russia no longer intends to be subject to a discourse on the universality of Western values…From the Russian elite’s viewpoint, the country has been able to recover only by breaking away from Western models”. From an economic point of view, the interdependence between EU and Russia cannot be avoided and will get stronger in future. After United States and China, Russia is the third largest commercial partner of the European Union. Moreover, the EU is Russia’s primary trade partner with 54% of its foreign trade. Russia and Europe are even more interdependent on energy matters.

At the beginning of the Putin era, energy relations were presented as a factor of cooperation, but since energy became for Russia a vehicle for projecting power during Putin’s second term, energy relations have become a political matter and a factor of tension. EU and Russia clearly have divergent interests on gas, with Europe that wants do depoliticize this relationship and Russia that made a politicized gas relationship a fundamental part of its European strategy. The interdependence between EU and Russia in the energy market is clear: 50% of energy used by the European Union is imported (will be 70% in 2030) and 26.3% (38.7% for oil) of this energy is imported from Russia. On the other hand, Russia gas exports to EU accounts for 84.8% (83.3 is the percentage for oil) of Russia’s total gas exports.

Thomas Gomart defines Russia’s policy on gas as “fuel-doubt” policy meaning that, on one hand the Kremlin wants to maintain the image of Russia as the most reliable supply zone on a global scale, but, on the other hand, Russian authorities want to use energy as vehicle for power. Europe has not a unified gas market. West Europe gas markets are large but diversified, whereas in East Europe the markets are smaller but much more dependent on Russia. Germany and Italy are the two biggest Gazprom’s clients and they obtain advantages by their cozy political relationship with Moscow. For this reason these two countries are pushed to accommodate Russian political requests. If Europe had an integrated and competitive gas market, highly dependent eastern European countries (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland) would feel less insecure, because the advantages obtained by Germany, Italy and France would be “Europeanized”.

The EU should build a single competitive gas market. According to Pierre Noel, an integrated and competitive European gas market would help to create the maximum degree of solidarity between European gas consumers; to improve collective supply security and to make member state’s bilateral relations with Russia largely irrelevant for what concern energy policy. Unfortunately, Germany and France continue to have reservations about a truly integrated and competitive European gas market.

The EU can no longer avoid facing a debate that will force the 27 member states to agree on a common analysis of Russia, in order to decide if Russia is a partner or a threat. My view is that Russia must be a partner, but as long as Europe fail to deal with this debate, we won’t be able to apply a common policy on Russia. In the short term, the Union must push for the admission of Russia in the WTO. This would help to ameliorate the relations between the two entities and also to resolve some anomalies in the Russian system, especially regarding the energy market and the judiciary system.

The European Union can assume an important role in the world affairs only if the single member states will accept a reduction to their sovereignty and the Union will be able to propose a truly unified foreign policy. The alliance between the EU and Russia is fundamental not only for economic reasons, but also because Russia has competences, attitudes and ability to act as a great power, while the European Union can bring its pillars of democracy and human rights. Both sides must acknowledge their responsibilities and improve their relationship.
That would be important to counterbalance the hegemonic power of the United States.