Russia's Attitudes towards the eu: Political Aspects

The EU: a prospect for accession

This vision suggests to aim at Russia's accession to the EU; moreover, this is recommended not as a long-term goal but as a practical task that should be clearly defined nowadays. In this context, even the notion of 'partnership' is considered inadequate and outdated: what Russia should be looking for is not partnership with, but participation in the EU. Furthermore, the EU is criticized for not thinking along these lines on future relations with Russia, and energetically advised to endorse this prospect.

This over-ambitious design could be partly attributed to the lack of understanding with respect to the EU. According a critically-minded expert from St-Petersburg, 'Russian politicians traditionally perceive the European Union as one among other international organizations, such as the Council of Europe, the OSCE, NATO. They do not take into account the key specificity of this political entity, namely, its supranational and quasi-state character'¹⁷.

There is also a lack of professional thinking on what Russia's participation in the EU would mean for Russia, to what extent this would be acceptable and 'digestible' for the EU, and what adjustments on Russia's part this would entail. Noteworthy, proponents of accession strategy never even mention (perhaps just being unaware of) the notion of the acquis communautaire that any country joining the EU is obliged to accept by adapting its administrative and legal systems and incorporating about 20 thousand normative acts therein¹⁸.

But the idea of accession is also backed by a political rationale (or, at least, what is considered to be one): should the prospect of Russia's integration into the EU be officially endorsed, this would leave no other choice to economic and political actors within Russia but to accept accommodation with EU standards, even if reluctantly and with the understanding of inevitable painful transformations that otherwise would be rejected. In other words, this would be a means of forcefully promoting the EU-based norms, patterns and requirements in Russia. Without doing this 'from above' and on the basis of politically motivated decision, incremental rapprochement with the EU would take several decades (if it happens at all).

The arguments of those who reject the prospect of Russia's eventual membership could be grouped in two clusters. One would include the whole variety of ideologically or politically motivated anti-Western and anti-European approaches, as described earlier. Another one would develop rational considerations for a more skeptical attitude. Thus, two of them are highlighted by a prominent Russian expert of the EU when arguing that the objective of Russia's membership is unrealistic and does not respond to the country's strategic interests:

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  First, the EU member-states will hardly agree with such a prospect, apprehending that the EU will be unable to 'digest' the huge eastern neighbour with all its historic, economic, social, geopolitical and cultural specific features.
  
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  Secondly, Russia has vital strategic non-European interests (for instance, in Central Asia or in the Pacific area). EU-related commitments and binding decision-making patterns would limit Russia's freedom of actions in the international arena¹⁹.
  

As far as the official stand on this issue is concerned, for some times it remained ambiguous. The idea of Russia's accession to the EU as full-fledged member was more than once mentioned in the past²⁰. However, alongside the development of Russia's growing rapprochement with the EU, the position of 'no accession to and no association with the EU' seemed to be adopted; indeed, it was included into the Medium-Term Strategy for the Development of Relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union 2000-2010²¹.

Three reasons might explain this approach.

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  First, the financial crash of August 1998 in Russia revealed the extreme vulnerability of its economy and superficial character of the on-going reforms. This in itself was a strong warning and raises serious question about Russia's ability to get accommodated to the realities of the EU.
  
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  Secondly, there is a strong pressure for a more protectionist policy generated by considerable part of the business community fearing external competition. At the same time, criminal and/or corrupted elements in all segments and on all levels of Russia's economy are by no means interested in making it more transparent and law-abiding.
  
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  Thirdly, the prospect of accession would provide the EU with the most powerful political leverage vis-a-vis Russia, making it vulnerable to eventual pressures. Without this tool, rare attempts of the EU to exercise political pressure on Russia will most probably have no discernable impact on Moscow (as it was proved in the case of the conflict in Chechnya). In this sense, 'no accession' policy means less responsibility and less accountability on the part of Russia (and probably less demands on the part of the EU).
  

Nevertheless, to consider the case closed would be premature. Noteworthy, a new formula was suggested in 2001 by Russian diplomacy (although only in a quasi-official way): 'Russia would like that its relations with the EU member-states would be similar to those that these states have between themselves'²². If ordinary logic tells that this means membership, in a political parlance this might mean something very advanced but falling short of full membership (with its burdensome responsibilities).

The EU as a leverage

Unclear accession prospects, on the one hand, and the risk of political rivalry with the EU as a competitive partner, on the other hand, might be compensated by its involvement in addressing those issues in the international arena that Russia considers important for reasons other than associated with the EU itself. The extent to which Russia is able to use the EU as leverage with respect to other international actors should certainly not be exaggerated. Furthermore, the EU and Russia could proceed from different motivations—but if their policies have similar vectors, Moscow would have reasons to consider the international activity of the EU as responding to its own interests. Making this a component of Russia's attitudes to the EU is only natural, even if Russia's debates do not reserve prominent place to this aspect of relations with the EU.

Thus, the influence of the EU may be helpful in promoting some concrete approaches backed by Russia, or alternatively in blocking those that provoke Russia's objections or concerns. The case in point is Russia's claims against some Baltic states (first of all with respect to alleged discrimination of Russophone minorities). Indeed, even if these claims are not fully supported by the EU, its contribution to making the policy of those countries more responsive to Russia's demands is difficult to deny.

In international conflict management there could also be situations where the EU and Russia have interest to operate in parallel ways or even jointly. It is true that this is perhaps a theoretical assumption rather than an observation from practical policy, since the record of the EU-endorsed conflict management is still rather limited. However, this area of activity becomes more salient both in Russia's perceptions and in those of the EU. There are no intrinsic reasons that would prevent them from cooperatively interacting in most of conflict-management situations. For Russia, this may be one more argument for considering political interaction with the EU valuable.

Notwithstanding all Russia's concerns about eventual 'alien' involvement in the CIS zone, the policy of the EU could be in resonance with some Russia's objectives even there. The case in point is the definition by the EU of criteria for recognizing post-Soviet states, which was mentioned earlier. They may have contributed, even if in a limited way, to ensure a peaceful character of the disintegration of the USSR. In a broader sense, the endorsement by the EU of democracy and civil society building in the new independent states, by the very fact of contributing to their stability, also corresponds to Russia's interest in having a predictable and relatively stable immediate external environment.

Eventual interaction with the EU in building a new pan-European political system is another matter that is of interest to Russia. Here, the situation is ambiguous: the EU might pretend to have a prominent place in this system (which does not necessarily provoke Russia's excessive enthusiasm), but it could also be considered a counterweight to NATO-centrism (and in this capacity supported by Russia).

The later subject evolves into a wider and even more contradictory theme: that of Russia's views on, and expectations with regard to the role of the EU in the Atlanticist component of the international system. This is a 'big issue' in Russia's assessments of the EU, and Russia's EU-related political rationales are to a very considerable degree inscribed into this system of coordinates.

By and large, Moscow tends to assess relations between Russia and the EU as having a certain positive potential in terms of implications for international developments, both with respect to some specific problem situations and globally. But there could be a 'negative leverage' as well, because Russia's economic dependence on the EU makes it vulnerable to eventual political pressures. The theme of 'interference in internal affairs', old-dated and traditionally annoying for Moscow, could also be a by-product of dynamism in political dialogue between two sides.

However, various arguments in favour of developing cooperative political interaction with the EU outweigh those that appeal for cautiousness and reservations. Cautiousness and reservations do not disappear but they seem to be deliberately pushed to the background of Russia's thinking. Their re-emergence cannot be excluded, but seems only possible if the rapprochement with the EU turns out inconsistent, impractical and, worse, counter-productive. The grounds for such pessimistic scenario, in the context of recent developments of political relations between Russia and the EU, look narrow indeed.