Glossary:

to underpin – to give strength or support to an idea, belief etc.: A solid basis of evidence underpins their theory.

to irk – if something irks you, it makes you feel annoyed, especially because you feel you cannot change the situation: She never told me what irked her that Sunday morning.

to clamourBr E/ clamor Am E – to demand something loudly: The audience were on their feet clamoring for more.

the Trojan Horse – 1. the Trojan Horse a wooden horse used by Greek soldiers to trick their enemies the Trojans during the Trojan War. The Greeks hid inside a large wooden model of a horse and were taken into Troy by Trojan soldiers, who thought that it was a gift 2. Someone or something that is accepted because it seems good or harmless, but that is really intended to cause harm: Senator Simon claimed the new law would reduce violence on TV, but opponents have attacked it as being a “Trojan Horse” that would lead to censorship of TV programming.

to overplay – to make something seem more important than it is: The poet’ s importance is overplayed by his biographer. Opposite: to underplay.

to stiffen – 1. to suddenly become unfriendly, angry, or anxious 2. to become stronger and more determined

sinew – (usually in plural) literary a means of strength or support: the sinews of our national defense;

to face down – to deal with someone in a strong and confident way: The police chief faced down reporters who were calling for his resignation.

to vindicate – to prove that someone or something is right or true (= to justify)

The cloud on Europe’s new horizon

(Financial Times, May 2005)

If enlargement is the European Union’s most successful policy for the way it creates and underpins reform in new member states, then the admittance of 10 new countries a year ago ought to rank as its crowning achievement to date. Their EU entry reunited the continent in market-based democracy.

But there is a black cloud on Europe’ s enlarged horizon, with the prospect that France, irked by enlargement and the eastward shift in the EU’ s center of gravity, may vote “no” in its referendum on the EU constitution. This hardly increases integration on the scale of some past treaties/ seeking just to streamline and democratize EU decision-making.

But rejection of the constitution would be the first time the EU has failed to deepen as it has widened. It would not actually undo last year’s enlargement, but it would darken the outlook for expansion.

In fact, last year’s big bang accession has gone remarkably well. Nightmare scenarios of goods flooding east and people flooding west never materialized. Growth in the Eastern European members last year exceeded that of other EU states, with increased exports and foreign investment. The jury is still out on overall migration flows because most EU-15 states maintain transitional limits on workers from accession states. But countries dispensing with limits have found that Eastern Europeans have usefully filled gaps and skill shortages.

It was also said that accession came politically too late, and institutionally too soon, for many incoming states. But the real sourness about enlargement has been among Western European governments finding themselves forced into tax competition with neighboring accession states, and unions clamoring about social dumping. But this is precisely the liberalizing shot in the arm the EU needs.

The idea that accession states would be disruptive Trojan horses for the United States was equally overplayed. Eastern Europe’ s most welcome impact has been to stiffen the sinews of the EU policy toward Russia, a stance amply vindicated in Ukraine where the EU’ s eastern newcomers led the move to face down Russia’ s undue influence. In doing so, the accession states have effectively added Ukraine to a list of would-be EU states. Yet that may only increase the French allergy to expansion. The risk is that the next small enlargement could be the last.

Exercise 9. Give extensive answers to the questions. Use the following expressions to start your answers:

The way I see it…

As far as I know…

It’s a well-known fact…

Though I can’t say for sure I think…

I may be wrong but I think…

I’m sorry I don’t know much about it…

I’m inclined to think…

I tend to believe…

1. What are the three most important powers of the EU?

2. Why is their unity so important for the future of the EU?

3. What are the differences between the USA from one side and Germany and France from the other?

4. What new challenges is the EU facing?

5. Comment on the latest contradictions within the EU?

Т ема VI.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND RUSSIA: TOWARDS A COMMON STRATEGY?

Institutional theory learns that institutions have a rather large capability to adopt themselves to changing conditions in their internal organization or in their external relations. This was obviously the case for the European Union, an institution which in its move towards further integration successfully managed to combine divergent expectancies of its member states with the need to develop a common policy. The history of the European Union shows that in EU internal policy matters, it was always possible to find a compromise between interests of the member states and the need to come to a joint decision. The so-called communitarian method was a success in EU internal decision making.

Confronted with the need to streamline its foreign policy, the European Union sought inspiration in its domestic decision making procedures. The idea was to apply the above mentioned successful method of seeking compromises between member states to the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. Common strategies of the European Council were conceived to add a strategic dimension to the common foreign policy of the European Union, which had hitherto been lacking. This was indeed the way in which the common strategy towards Russia came into being.

Development of EU Foreign Policy Making

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the European Union sought for an answer to the challenge of the establishing new relations with its neighbors. The European Union could hardly follow the growing ambitions of its new post-communist partners on the European continent. Bilateral treaties, such as the Trade and Cooperation Agreements soon appeared not to answer the ambitions of the post-communist countries. In this sense the story of the relation between the European Union and the post-communist countries reflects the story of European integration. Ambitions to reach a sustainable foreign policy can be found in the original treaties in the fact that important powers were conferred to the community in the field of development cooperation and foreign trade. Early attempts to come to a common European political cooperation , such as the European Defense Community, the European Political Community in 1954 and the Fouchet plan in 1961 failed. In 1970 European Political Cooperation came into being as a rather procedural cooperation link, which found its legal consolidation in the Single European Act of 1986. Notwithstanding the tension between national interests and common interest, which was so typical for the intergovernmental character of early cooperation, consultations on all levels in the framework of European Political Cooperation "created the feeling of a diplomatic club, where contradictions of the intergovernmental procedure faded".

However, in its foreign policy towards a disintegrated post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe, the European Union soon had to admit its weakness. The European initiatives in the former Yugoslavia failed. The strengthening of the European Political Cooperation by the Single European Act did not seem to be sufficient. The treaties of Maastricht (1991) and Amsterdam (1996) had to overcome this problem by introducing new procedures, which, be it partially, introduced decision-making based on qualified majority voting. The Intergovernmental Conference of 1996 was intended to correct the failures of Maastricht, but again failed to bring real solutions to an increasing problem. The Union's external relations were divided between the Union's predominantly intergovernmental second pillar, in which decision making by unanimous agreement prevailed and where the difficulties inherent to a union of fifteen states, most of them jealous of their sovereignty, remained, and first, the community pillar, where qualified majority voting normally applies and where the commission has a key role. It became clear that it would be absurd to divorce European foreign policy from the institutions which have been given responsibility for most of the instruments for its accomplishment: for external trade questions, including sanctions; for European external assistance; for many of the external aspects of Justice and Home affairs. The Amsterdam Treaty came up with an institutional answer: it introduced a secretariat and a secretary general as new institutions and three new instruments: common strategies, common actions and common positions. These new instruments, which qualified majority voting in the second pillar, had to induce a pro-active and strategic policy.

Common Strategies

The Amsterdam Treaty of the European Union of 1997 introduced the common strategy as a new instrument for European foreign policy, more in particular for European Common Foreign and Security Policy. The common strategy was initially perceived by the scientific world as a remarkable and ingenious tool, in that it is both part of the EU' s external relations and internal institutional innovation. Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam indeed explains that the drafting process of the common strategy is based on a common denominator, derived from the national interests of the member states :" The European Council shall decide on common strategies to be implemented by the Union in areas where the member states have important interests in common. Common strategies shall set out their objectives, duration and means to be made available by the Union and the member states. The Council shall recommend common strategies and shall implement them, in particular by adopting joint actions and common positions". In this way the common strategy, as a technique, represented an innovation in EU external institution building, aiming at a delicate balance between intergovernmentalism and federal ambitions in the second pillar. The idea was to decouple broad strategic decisions based on unanimity from smaller tactical steps, approved by qualified majority voting. Common Strategies were perceived as agreements between the member states and the European Council, which are meant to streamline the Union's CFSP mechanisms, to integrate the activities of the individual member states and to introduce qualified majority voting in the Council. This is why the procedure of drafting a common strategy was called the "Christmas tree method": the Council defines the general lines and afterwards each individual country can hang some "ornaments" expressing its own national interests (for example cooperation in the field of trade, ecological protection, high technology).

At the Vienna Summit in 1998 the European Council decided to devise common strategies on Russia, Ukraine, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans, geographically speaking, "the borderlands of the European Union", a kind of "Near Abroad" for the enlarged European Union. The Common Strategy on Russia was adopted first in June 1999; the Common Strategy on Ukraine followed some six months later on 11 December 1999. Both were adopted for a period of four years and soon have to be revised. The Common Strategy on the Mediterranean region is the third strategy of its kind and was adopted on 19 June 2000. These common strategies suffer from similar general problems, but we will concentrate in our paper on the common strategy on Russia and its effects and implications for international relations and geopolitics.

The first EU common strategy was aimed at the Russian Federation. By doing, the member states did express their intention to come to a strategic partnership with the most important continental partner of the Union. Previously, the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, signed in 1994 was presented as the keystone of a new strategic approach of the European Union towards Russia.

However, with the outbreak of the first Chechen War, it became clear that European Common Foreign and Security Policy did not dispose of enough instruments to influence Russia. The Common Strategy towards Russia was presented as complementary to the Partnership and Cooperation Treaty, certainly not replacing the latter. In this way the Partnership and Cooperation Treaty and the Common Strategy remain until now the most important building blocks of the relation between the Union and Russia. This relation is intrinsically bound with developments within the second pillar of the European construction.

Critical Observations

The initial optimism with the common strategy was bound to fade, it was soon replaced by critical observations: the individual member states were not in favour to leave the consensus rule, the common strategies reiterated the words of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements, they did not add much to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements, and thus could not be called strategic. One of the most important – down to earth – reasons for these flaws is that no additional budget was provided for implementing the common strategy. Moreover, several individual member states appeared not be willing to accept qualified majority voting in the implementation of foreign policy strategies. The common strategy one-sided, it was told, more a tactical instrument for compromise between the member states than a strategic for foreign policy.

This uneasiness about the Common the Common Strategic of the Council became in particular clear when, in the autumn of 2000 the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Javier Solana, asked by the General Affairs Council, submitted an evaluation report on the operation and possible improvement of the existing common strategies. Solana was rather straight in his criticism identifying the gap between poor effectiveness on the other hand. The common strategies, according to Solana, had not yet contributed to a stronger and more effective European Union in international affairs.

The report criticizes the limited value of the Common Strategy as an internal working tool, in particular in sensitive crisis situations, and the uncertainty as to how the common strategies relate to the already existing instruments, most notably the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements. The Prospect of qualified majority voting decisions was singled out a reason for making member states more reluctant to engage with the common strategies. The presidencies' work plans were referred to by Solana as "routine exercises" and "inventories of existing policies and activities".

Solana's report asks for the common strategies to be turned into primarily internal EU policy documents, to be more selective in scope and contain "verifiable objectives" against which progress can be measured and on the basis of which member states could promote the common strategies in other international institutions. The common strategy is essentially meant to be intergovernmental framework by means of which individual member states are reasserting their say in EU foreign policy, Mr. Solana underscored.

Afterwards, the European Parliament expressed its support for both the common strategies and Solana's conclusions about the need to make the documents more credible and ensure means for their implementation.

Perhaps Solana's criticism was even not far reaching enough, as a more fundamental question remains open: how "common" and how "strategic" is a common strategy of the European Council anyhow? The commonality of the strategy, if there is any, only resides in the fact the EU internally tries to seek a solution for divided approaches within its own organization. A common strategy does not rely on a consensus between partners, on the contrary. Common strategies are unilaterally conceived by the European Union without participation or advice of the target country. Russia was not involved in the redaction and negotiation of the common strategy. Moreover, there is not much strategic in the common strategy: instead of becoming a policy blueprint, the common strategy tends to become a policy substitute: the gap between the wording of the document and real politics became a symptom of the deficit of common foreign policy within EU internal policy making. One can conclude that this strategy is mistakenly called a "common strategy". The foreign policy concept of the Russian Federation does not even mention the EU Common Strategy towards Russia.

At the end, the crucial question becomes whether his unilateral behaving by the European Union towards third countries was harmful for the aim of establishing balanced relations on the European continent?

Russia's Answer

A few months after the adoption of EU's common strategy towards Russia, Russia came with its own medium-term strategy towards the European Union. Although generally accepting the wording of EU's common strategy, Russia presented itself as an indignant partner, claiming to be taken seriously as the main trade partner with the European Union and as the most important and leading member state of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In this way one can talk about a two-headed foreign policy profile, formulated by Russia towards the European Union. On the one hand Russia accepted the conditionality formulated by the European Union, but on the other hand it presented itself as claiming a leading role within the CIS and asking the European Union to sustain his role and not to interfere by establishing bilateral relations with the New Independent States of the CIS.

It is often forgotten that Russia formulated its own strategy towards the New Independent States of the CIS as early as 1995, be in the form of a presidential decree. In this decree Russia constructs, institutionalizes and legitimizes its geopolitical influence on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

This approach can be qualified as specific for Russia. Ukraine's docility in this field for example strongly constructs with the ambivalent attitude of Russia. The reaction of Ukraine to the EU common strategy towards its own country did not show that two-layered structure (on the one hand accepting conditionality, on the other imposing its own strategy, as Russia did). Ukraine was well prepared to answer in an enthusiastic way to the EU common strategy. In a decree "On the Strategy of Ukraine's Integration into the European Union" of 11 June 1998, following the ratification of the Partnership and Cooperation Treaty, President Kuchma singled out EU membership as Ukraine's strategic goal, and associate membership as a mid-term foreign policy objective. But the European Union appeared to be a cool lover, becoming tired of all this activity and adding only a few of Ukraine's detailed suggestions to the "wish list".

Notes:

geopolitics – the study of how politics is affected by geographical factors;

hitherto – до сих пор;

notwithstanding (preposition) – не смотря на;

notwithstanding (adverb) – все-таки;

notwithstanding that...( conjunction ) – не смотря на, что... ;

keystone (fig.) – краеугольный камень.

Active Vocabulary:

ambivalent – двойственный;

coherent – связный, логически последовательный; членораздельный;

coherent argument – логичный / последовательный довод;

coherent policy – последовательная внешняя политика;

coherent reasoning – логически последовательное обоснование / доказательство;

contradiction – 1. опровержение; 2. противоречие, расхождение, несоответствие;

a contradiction in terms – логическое противоречие;