Russia's Attitudes towards the eu: Political Aspects

The prominence of the political context

There is a noteworthy confusion in Russia's assessment of the substance and driving forces of the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.

On the one hand, most Russian observers seemed to consider the enlargement of the EU in juxtaposition to the enlargement of NATO—in line with the obsessive focus upon the latter. This logic brought them to point to what they saw as fundamental differences between the two processes. The argument went as follows.

In the case of NATO, the enlargement (to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary) was driven by political motives. It was aimed at consolidating this military alliance against Russia—which was fraught with serious negative implications for the international stability. In particular, this would create 'new dividing lines' in the continent and inflict irreparable damage to the prospects of the 'new European architecture'. That is why Moscow had to use all possible political and diplomatic means to prevent the enlargement of NATO. Failure to achieve this would require serious political and even military counter-measures on the part of Russia. Its foreign policy could be re-oriented away from Europe making political accommodation with the West more and more difficult. Russia's domestic politics would be affected as well, with anti-western, anti-democratic, anti-liberal and anti-market forces becoming more powerful and influential—which, on its turn, might have grave implications for Russia's foreign policy, making it more assertive. By and large, the West was going to make a serious mistake, and the price to be paid for it will be a 'cold peace' instead of equal partnership, with serious chances to evolve into a new cold war.

In the case of the EU, everything is quite different. The enlargement is based on the trends of 'objective developments' and driven by economic factors rather than by political considerations. For this reason, it cannot and should not be 'resisted'. Unlike NATO, this enlargement could not be considered as constituting a threat to Russia or challenging its vital interests. This process expands the zone of economic prosperity, whereas NATO enlargement creates an exclusive security zone, without providing to others an access therein. Furthermore, the enlargement of the EU could fit into the broader picture of building a 'greater Europe' where Russia could also get a prominent place (in contrast to a 'NATO-centred Europe').

In fact, this logic represents nothing else but the continuation of the traditional line of thinking that tends to consider everything related to the EU against the background of NATO. Furthermore, there is a specific segment within this logic that explains the enlargement of NATO as a kind of substitute to the enlargement of the EU.

Indeed, joining the EU is a considerably more demanding task than joining NATO. Qualifying for the EU membership is an order of magnitude harder than responding to criteria of accession to NATO. In the former case, an applicant has to restructure its whole economy and to accommodate its legal system to that of the EU. In the latter case, what is essential is the political decision whereas the degree of required accommodation is incomparable with a huge amount of work that has to be done for absorbing acquis communautaire.

More concretely, the three Central European countries that joined NATO in 1999, would have spent long years in the EU antechamber. For them, NATO membership was a cheap, easily achievable consolatory prize for not being accepted into the EU. The latter, according to such analysis, was reluctant to let them in, not being sure that they could meet formidable challenges of accommodation and concerned with implications that might follow for the EU itself. Moreover, the applicant countries might be satisfied with this design as well, since it allowed to avoid a painful process of making themselves 'compatible' with the EU or, at least, to protract this process over much longer time rather than engaging in a 'shock therapy' with its high social and political costs.

What does not fit into this scheme is the fact that the enlargement of the EU was not postponed to indefinite future after the enlargement of NATO. On the contrary, the latter seemed to provide additional incentives to the former, turning it into a more realistic perspective and, in fact, promoting the engagement of all involved parties into concrete negotiations.

This introduced a second dimension into Russia's assessments and explanations—the dimension that, in a sense, contradicted the logic of drawing a clear cut distinction between the two enlargements. On the contrary, now they were regarded as making parts of one and the same political design, that of filling the vacuum that had emerged on what used to be the space under the exclusive control of Moscow.

It seems noteworthy that this line of thinking is promoted by those Russian academics and experts who have a vast knowledge of the EU realities. For them, the process of integration has to be based on the objective economic interdependence and compatibility, as it was proved by the successful experience of the EU and by the failure of many other attempts to reproduce this pattern in the absence of necessary preconditions. Political motives are certainly important for the development of integration, but they have to be supplementary to solid economic realities. Otherwise, the integration becomes a means for promoting political ends rather than an organic process that is developing on its own, under the influence of objective centripetal factors.

Within such vision, the first and the third phases of the enlargement were driven by economic rationales. Indeed, the countries that joined the EC in the 1970s and then the EU in 1990s were basically compatible with it, and their accession promoted the further development of the integration.

On the contrary, the Mediterranean vector of the enlargement in the 1980s had a predominantly political character, with economic preconditions being considerably less obvious since the compatibility of applicant countries with the EC was much lower. The involvement of Greece, Spain and Portugal was aimed at consolidating their democratic status, after years of authoritarian rule, and widening the territorial scope of the EC itself for increasing its international role. This was a political project rather than an economic one, and the Community had to pay a certain price for it. In particular, the EC became less homogeneous, the degree of its internal cohesion diminished, additional tensions emerged within centre-periphery relationship—this all was a reverse side of politically motivated choice to expand. It is another question that the political goal itself was considered to be worth such efforts and sacrifices, but the decision 'to go politically' was undoubtedly the foundation of that enlargement.

The current stage of the EU enlargement fits into this second model. Moreover, its political character is even more obvious⁸⁸. Economically the East Central European countries and three Baltic states are even worse prepared for a full-fledged participation in the EU than it was the case of three candidates of 1980s. In addition, post-socialist countries have passed through a longer experience of diverging economic, social and political practices, which confronts them with a considerably tougher task of accommodation towards the EU. These factors, although not an insurmountable obstacle for the membership in the EU, should have been a serious warning both for the EU and for the candidate countries.

Nevertheless, these economic concerns seem to be outweighed by the political motives. The intellectual conclusion from such kind of assessment goes as follows: if the on-going enlargement of the EU has a predominantly political character, this gives even more grounds to Russia to look at it from a political angle. In other words, this line of thinking pretends to have direct implications for Russia's policy line.

Interestingly, the logic of this approach would make reconsider the earlier hopes that the enlargement of the EU could be an alternative to the enlargement of NATO. Furthermore: not only they go in parallel and reinforce each other, but Russia might have even more serious concerns about the implications of the EU enlargement as compared to those that would be generated by the enlargement of NATO.

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  The enlargement of NATO, however unpleasant it might be for Russia, is relatively limited in functional sense touching first of all upon the sphere of military security. The EU is a more overwhelming project; the integration creates a new reality in virtually all areas of social developments. Russia apprehends that the participation in NATO might affect the policy of the new member-states. Yet, their participation in the EU will change these states themselves.
  
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  Russia is worried that it will be alienated from NATO-centred Europe. Yet, this alienation might have a qualitatively deeper character with respect to the enlarged EU—just because the enlargement of the EU will bring about more fundamental changes in the new member-states than their actual or eventual accession to NATO will. If Russia was against the enlargement of NATO because it would allegedly generate 'new dividing lines' on the continent, then it should have even more serious apprehensions about an actual abyss that might separate it from the enlarged EU⁸⁹.
  
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  In the case of NATO, these dividing lines might be fluid and could even erode if new circumstances appear or a political decision for rapprochement is taken by both sides. The enlargement of the EU will bring about irreversible changes; they could not be mitigated by political decisions only as such decisions would be insufficient for making Russia and the EU more compatible. In the final analysis, this applies to the scenarios of Russia's eventual membership in both structures: joining NATO would be easier than joining the EUNATO and in the EU—the later would be more difficult to achieve in comparison to the former.
  
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  Russia used a system of arguments against the enlargement of NATO—the system that had a certain coherence, even if the arguments themselves were not convincing for interlocutors. No coherent objections on Russia's side could be presented against the enlargement of the EU.
  
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  If Russia continues to experience a political discomfort with respect to the enlargement of NATO, it could envisage some political or even military counter-measures thereto. They would almost certainly bring no results and could even be counter-productive in terms of Russia's own interests, but if Moscow takes a political decision on this matter, such measures could be put into practice. Nothing of this kind is possible with regard to the EU enlargement—unless Russia succeeds in promoting an 'alternative' integration within the CIS pattern, which looks nowadays as a highly implausible proposition.
  
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  Finally, the problem of NATO enlargement could become irrelevant for Russia within an opposite scenario—that of its radically improved relations with the West. In principle, this could bring about a possibility of Russia's accession to, or enhanced association with NATO. With respect to the EU, implementing a similar model of Russia's membership would be more difficult—for the reasons that were discussed earlier. If so, removing Russia's enlargement-related concerns by the very fact of Russia's membership also looks more realistic in the case of NATO than in the case of the EU.
  

Against the background of Russia's earlier enthusiasm about the EU enlargement, this turn of thoughts might seem somehow surprising—but it adequately reflects the analytical trend of focusing upon extremes rather than looking for intermediate assessments. Indeed, the 'old logic' of setting the two enlargements against each other clearly failed to assess the intrinsic link between, and commonality of the two processes. Overcoming this logic would certainly contribute to making Russian perceptions more adequate. However, the price to be paid for this reassessment may come to expanding Russia's NATO-related concerns onto the enlargement of the EU. Paradoxically, in the latter case these concerns might even become reinforced by the overall importance that the EU enjoys in Russian perceptions.