Russia's Attitudes towards the eu: Political Aspects

The context of self-identification

One more factor was important for promoting Moscow's attention to the EU. Russia started (or, rather, re-started) search for civilization and/or geopolitical self-identification—an intellectual and political exercise that has continued for centuries and remains nowadays both fascinating and inconclusive. Schematically, it is possible to distinguish three main lines of thinking in this regard⁴:

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  a European paradigm (Russia belongs to Europe),
  
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  an Asian paradigm (Russia is closer to Asia), and
  
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  a Eurasian paradigm (Russia is special, it represents a world in itself that follows its own destiny and develops its own rules).
  

Depending on which one of the three is chosen (or on their combination), the EU could be regarded by Russia differently—both in terms of assessment and as far as the policy line is concerned.

Indeed, within the European paradigm, Russia would see itself as an organic part of Europe, and if the latter is increasingly associated with, concentrated in, and incarnated by the EU, Russia should be a part of it. This might have two implications for Russia's policy-thinking. On the one hand, it would be only natural to define prompt accession to the EU as one of the imperatives for the country's foreign policy (or even as its most urgent priority)—as it was done by the former socialist countries in East-Central Europe. On the other hand, failure to achieve this goal, for whatever reason, might generate a political and psychological complex of unfair treatment denying to Russia the status that it deserves—which in itself is fraught with resentment and, eventually, the reaction of alienation. Thus, in a paradoxical way, Russia's self-identification with Europe might result in grievances against the EU if it does not meet the idea of Russia's membership with support and enthusiasm.

The Asian paradigm makes the question of membership irrelevant. Furthermore, it orients Russia away from the EU stipulating that the country's main interests, prospects and would-be assets are to be associated with non-European options. In addition, Russia's 'Europeanness' could be a burden complicating the country's future-oriented search for a better destiny. In its extreme version , this line of thinking would argue for protecting Russia against the expansionism of the West (and, ipso facto, that of the EU), with chances for effective protection being considerably increased if Russia is supported by, or even allied with one or few Asian powers (China, India, Iran and so on).

The intellectual stereotype of Russia's Eurasian vocation is vague and allows for various interpretations of its foreign policy implications—interpretations that sometimes conflict with each other. This concerns, alongside other matters, the assessment of, and Russia's would-be policy towards the EU. Thus, if Russia represents 'a special case' in the development of civilization, it should not worry about eventual incompatibilities with external partners, such as the EU; it cannot and should not follow exogenous models, in particular, that of the EU; the inclination of the latter to expand its zone of influence might be a challenge to Russia, and so on.

At the same time, there may be another interpretation of Russia's 'Eurasianness' pointing to the fact that its unquestionable belonging to the European civilization goes in parallel with its geopolitical location making it vulnerable to challenges from Asia (for instance, associated with China). This must make Russia more sensitive to the Asian dimension of its foreign and security policy. Noteworthy, this guideline may advise against focusing excessively upon the West in general and the EU in particular—or, alternatively, argue in favour of forging strong cooperative relations with them, in order to have a secure 'rear' in case of unpredictable developments in Russia's Asian 'fronts'.

Against the background of these competing self-identification contexts, the character of Russia's re-emerging attention towards the EU was by no means predetermined. In fact, all the above mentioned trends affecting Russia's policy-oriented thinking in the 1990s were conducive to a whole variety of images of the EU and Russia's would be policy towards it.

2. Views on the EU: various paradigms

Plurality of Russia's perceptions with respect to the EU is related to various contexts in which the latter is (or could be) regarded as meaningful and deserving attention. Schematically, what might provoke Russia's interest could be described by four formulas:

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  the EU as a model (that could be a source of political or organizational inspiration),
  
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  the EU as a partner (for cooperative or competitive interaction),
  
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  the EU as a structure for eventually incorporating Russia as a member-state, and
  
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  the EU as a channel of leverage for attaining results beyond bilateral relations with the EU per se.
  

In practical terms, the actual policy line is based on a mixture of these perceptions. Analytically, each of them deserves some attention.

The EU as a model

The EU might represent for Moscow a fascinating model of how to organize relations between sovereign states in such a way that they become increasingly able to operate as an entity without losing their individual characteristics or by mutually accommodating them. The EU is generally considered to be a success story, and its example looks particularly impressive against the background of spectacular failures of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), this post-Soviet structure that Russia would be interested to turn into a viable and sustainable organization.

Indeed, the differences between the EU and the CIS are so enormous and substantive that even comparing these two structures might seem absolutely inappropriate. But some approaches, tools, organizational schemes and policy archetypes that have been successfully tested in (and by) the EU could be eventually considered relevant in the CIS context. In fact, some of these have been 'copied' by the CIS (which predictably does not provide this organization with additional viability, because of superficial character of adopting them).

The idea of 'integration with variable geometry' is also used for describing what is happening within the CIS, and some parallels with the EU are being drawn in this respect also. For instance, neither the Economic and monetary union nor the Schengen zone embrace all member-states of the EU. And this serves as an additional justification for different speeds of consolidation in the CIS, with some of its participants preferring very vague and soft integration, while others discussing custom union ('union of five'), and two of them even building a 'joint state' (Russia and Belarus).

Amazingly, although the latter case has no chances of being considered seriously as long as it is associated with ungracious political figure of President Lukashenko of Belarus, even in this model some analysts would be ready to see resemblance with the EU. Indeed, they point to the fact that the EU has a de facto 'core zone' of integration, and the idea of transforming it into something more official is debated not only as a purely academic question. If this represents a part of reality in the EU, the most developed integration pattern in the world, then there should be no reasons for considering this impossible within the CIS.

Serious analysts are rather cautious when considering the very possibility of using the EU experience for developing integration in the CIS. The most radical approach in the 'no' part of the analytical spectrum underlines that this is impossible in principle, just because the economic basis is absolutely different in the two cases—so that even applying the word 'integration' to the CIS would be absolutely groundless⁵. Others would recommend to expand the analysis of the EU for understanding the overall logic of its development⁶. Sometimes, when making comparative studies, analysts look for possibilities to pick up specific 'technologies' of the EU⁷.

Policy-makers seem to be more enthusiastic when a happy idea of modeling upon the EU occur to them. Noteworthy, infamous 'oligarch' Boris Berezovskiy, when holding the post of deputy secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (1996-1997), tried to promote the idea of 'using the EU experience' in developing the CIS. Since his campaign was mainly focused upon overcoming the principle of unanimity in the decision-making process, this was rejected as an attack on sovereign rights of member-states. Nevertheless, in the 'Eurasian Economic Community' that was set up in 2000 by five CIS countries⁸, the decision-making is based upon the principle of majority voting with weighted votes⁹—which is slightly reminiscent of rules existing in the EU Council. It remains to be seen whether this structure survives and, if so, to what extent its decision-making scheme becomes operational.

What seems obvious even now is that these are typical examples of attempting to do quickly what requires years of consistent efforts. In the EU the process of gradually passing to majority voting has taken decades. And the EU experience has convincingly shown that adopting this principle cannot be only based on a political decision. It should be based on a vast and durable cooperative practice implemented on various levels of political mechanism. Otherwise, the very idea of supranational elements in the development of integration could be discredited, or the process itself could be blocked, as it happened in the EC in 1965-66. Russian 'imitators' of the EU are often either ignorant about the EU or proceed from excessively self-assured confidence that they could do better and faster.

However, even when (and if) there is an adequate knowledge, practical implementation always differs from theoretical schemes. With this qualification in mind, the idea of 'modeling upon the EU experience' might be considered for application even in a broader sense, both below the national level and above it. For instance, the case of the sub-national level seemed to become relevant for the Soviet Union in 1990-91, at the very end of its days, when it was already in disarray and the de facto growing autonomy of the constituent republics clearly pointed to the disintegration of the country. One of the directions of thinking on how to save its integrity pointed to the EU (EC)—the direction that was not seriously considered at that time, or rather simply overtaken by the avalanche-type collapse of the country.

In an amazing way, the analogy between the Soviet Union and the EU is developed in the other way around as well, with the former presented either as a would-be model for the latter, or as the warning on dangerous risks that might bring any multinational endeavor to a failure. The 'apologetic version' of this intellectual approach is well reflected in a dubious compliment addressed to the EU by the chairman of State Duma Guennady Seleznev: 'The European Union is a very clever organization that has adopted all useful [things] from the Soviet Union'¹⁰.

The opposite way of thinking addresses alarming signals to the EU: 'In the final analysis, the future of the EU will be settled neither by economic integration and free movement of working force, nor by joint financial system and even joint armed forces—this all used to exist in the Soviet Union'. That's why 'the Europeans should be more serious about the experience of another Union that has recently collapsed'. In particular, the disintegration of the USSR started by the adoption of 'laws on languages' and the explosion of linguistic passions in its constituent republics, which allows for worrisome parallels in the case of the EU, with its 11 official languages and the preponderance of one of them, 'reflecting the economic and political dominance of a non-European power'¹¹.

However, comparing the EU and the USSR is a backward-oriented exercise whereas Russian developments appeal for analyzing the relevance of the EU model for the country's current challenges¹². For instance, a case could be made for applying the EU experience by introducing the subsidiarity principle into the domestic political structure of the Russian Federation. This idea could be politically attractive, if one takes into account the complexity of relations between the centre and the provinces (regions) in Russia—complexity fraught with serious implications either in terms of the country's disintegration (as it happened to the Soviet Union), or in terms of its bureaucratic and autocratic over-centralization. The only problem is that the very concept of subsidiarity provokes even more confusion in Russia than in the EU¹³.

A broader approach in terms of thinking about the EU as a model is possible not only 'downward' but also 'upward', with respect to the level of international relations in Russia's surrounding. For instance, this could be the case of Russia's concerns with respect to some areas of its 'near abroad', such as Transcaucasus. If pacifying and stabilizing them is considered as Russia's serious interest, a possible way of achieving this might consist in promoting integration between the belligerents (a model of French-German reconciliation through the ECSC/EC/EU), with Russia operating as external integrator… However, this scheme is derived from very broad thinking about the integration in the EU rather than represents eventual elements of Russia's political agenda associated with this organization.