Russia's Attitudes towards the eu: Political Aspects

8. Kaliningrad as a test case

The Kaliningrad region that became Russia's exclave on the Baltic Sea shore after the demise of the Soviet Union represents a particular case in Moscow's attitudes towards the CFSP and the EU in general. This is due to three reasons.

Existential uncertainty

First of all, there is a kind of Russia's existential uncertainty about the future status of the Kaliningrad region. It is clear that this uncertainty would be never expressed officially. Most politicians would be hesitant even to mention this delicate issue publicly. However, when looking into the future, whether the region remains a part of Russia would not seem to many Russians a pure theoretical question.

This is partly generated by the old-style suspicions on Germany's revanshism and eventual territorial claims on the part of Poland and Lithuania. It is true the scope of such suspicions should not be exaggerated. Nevertheless, in the Russian debate one could find some intellectual and political speculations on the 'interest' towards the Kaliningrad region which is allegedly growing in these countries. For instance, when the regional Duma in November 1998 adopted a law allowing to sell and buy lands, this raised concerns that up to half of them might become the ownership of German companies¹⁰⁰.

At the official level, no one is blamed or openly suspected for intending to question the 1945 Potsdam settlement. By and large, there is an understanding that support of such approach is only a marginal phenomenon in the neighbouring countries and has very doubtful chances to become politically relevant.

At the same time, against the background of what has happened in eastern and south-eastern parts of Europe during the 1990s, a scenario of changing post World War II borders does not look absolutely implausible. There are no reasons why this could not be applied to Russia—where this feeling is promoted both by the psychological trauma of having lost the status of superpower and by a certain deterioration of relations with the West.

In addition, the Kaliningrad region is located on the territory that has never been populated or explored by Russians in the past, and their emotional 'attachment' to the former Eastern Prussia certainly differs from that to areas of their traditional settlement. With renewed interest of Russians to the history of their country, they cannot but experience a certain discomfort when half a century of 'their' period of the Kaliningrad region is confronted to, and compared with seven centuries of the area's German period. Paradoxically, many in Russia might even consider claiming the Crimea (that had turned out a foreign territory after the demise of the USSR) more legitimate than resolutely upholding the principle of Russia's territorial integrity with respect to what was a pure annexation as the result of the World War II, even if approved by other victorious powers and not officially questioned nowadays by anybody.

Some analysts and politicians add up arguments based on economic and political rationale. The Kaliningrad region, according to this line of thinking, is no more than a traditional colony, and Russia will have earlier or later to get rid of this burden¹⁰¹. Even if such approaches by no means represent a mainstream of Russia's views on the Kaliningrad region, they do create doubt to what extent its belonging to the country could be included into the category of obvious, undeniable and uncontestable hard facts.

The double edge of Europeanization

Secondly, Russia faces uneasy choices with respect to the long-term prospects of the developments in (and of) the region. The latter has to be opened towards Europe because of obvious economic, financial, technologic and communication constraints, as well as due to Russia's limited resources that may be used for supporting the region. Its European predicament is by and large recognized by a majority of observers—including those who profess an anti-western ideological credo or believe in the region's unique geostrategic value, as one of Russia's few remaining outposts providing access to the Baltic Sea¹⁰².

Indeed, notwithstanding any arguments in favor of keeping the Kaliningrad region only as a military stronghold focused upon traditional security, implementing this line would be virtually impossible. Moreover, its military significance might be questioned by the very fact of its remoteness—which would be further aggravated if and when three Baltic states join NATO.

At the same time, Russian media abound in information on deteriorating living standards, poor economic performance, sluggish reforms and inadequate administration in the Kaliningrad region which all makes it unattractive in terms of investments¹⁰³. The prospects of the region, if the current trends continue, look extremely gloomy. It is hoped that the remedy may consist in attracting foreign investments thus insuring the region's economic and social recovery and viability. This strategy is to be based upon the geographic location of the Kaliningrad region as Russia's 'most western-exposed' administrative entity; indeed, this is considered to be the region's only valuable asset.

However, in order to make the Kaliningrad region more receptive to foreign capitals, it has to be turned 'more European' in a very broad sense—in terms of legislation, administrative management, the practice of entrepreneurship and so on, including the predominant patterns of political, economic and social behaviour. It may be rightly argued that this is easier to achieve within one territorial entity rather than in the scale of a vast country such as Russia. But the reverse side of the medal is that the region might become 'more European' than all the rest of the country. This, in turn, could promote further disengagement of the former from the latter; indeed, the already existing distance between them might become not only physical, as it takes place now, but also institutional and political one—which will be a much more serious challenge than 1000 kilometers separating Moscow from Kaliningrad nowadays.

In addition, in order to make the Kaliningrad region more attractive to western capital, Moscow has to provide it with some special rights that do not exist in the rest of the country—such as more liberal custom regulation, preferential taxes and so on. This, according to alarmist expectations, will inevitably make the region even more 'special' as compared to Russia proper; a by-product of additional incentives for the region reforms would be its becoming increasingly different and therefore alienated from 'the mainland'¹⁰⁴. It is true that this hypothesis has not been verified so far, since earlier attempts of establishing a 'special/free economic zone' in the region actually failed in the 1990s¹⁰⁵. But the logic of such approach still seems attractive and may become politically relevant again—also restoring fears and concerns about and the region's eventual disintegration from Russia¹⁰⁶.

This is the core of the 'Kaliningrad dilemma': in order to prevent further deterioration of the region and to make it sustainable, Moscow has to promote its 'European drift'; the latter, however, is fraught with the region's re-orientation away from Russia. In the worst case scenario, this may at one point undermine Russia's sovereignty in the region and eventually bring about its withdrawal.

Noteworthy, such vision is not necessarily generated by excessive suspicions with respect to the neighbours of the Kaliningrad region. Indeed, such suspicions, as mentioned earlier, do not represent a very strong element of Russia's thinking about the Kaliningrad region. The problem is that the latter might start alienating from Russia without any 'support' from the neighbouring governments (and even against their eventual intention to slow down the process in order to avoid political conflict with Russia). The emerging economic, corporate and technological links might turn out stronger and more powerful than any political considerations. The Kaliningrad region, 'exposed' to the open market and not politically protected by Russia, might just become engaged by new realities (especially since the old ones are insignificant or powerless).

In a sense, the case of the Kaliningrad region might be presented as a model of political risks generated by trans-national economy. If so, warnings against such risks, as described above, look fitting well into the logic of antiglobalism. The distorted character of this alarmist approach—or, rather, its inability to suggest viable alternatives—is well demonstrated by this case also. What is interesting here is the fact that various concerns about the Kaliningrad region's political perspectives in the light of its economic 'opening' appeared not as a replica of antiglobalist movement but prior to it and almost as its proto-model, the one developing in a micro-scale, but with unclear political relevance to a big country.