The conflict in Georgia in August 2008 is making the EU rethink its approach to the eastern neighbourhood.If the Union is to have a safe and stable eastern border – which it had taken for granted until the Georgia war – it needs to offer its neighbours a credible membership perspective, and it should also help them to resolve ‘frozen conflicts’ on their territories. Ukraine should be the starting point for Europe’s new policy.For years, the EU’s eastern strategy worked on the basis of a simple premise. With sufficient time, EU money, trade opportunities and a little friendly nudging, all Eastern European countries, from Ukraine to Azerbaijan, would in time become ‘Europeanised’. They might or might not join the EU, but they would become like its member-states: liberal, democratic, internationalist, law-abiding and peaceful. Even Russia, once it had fully recovered from the trauma that the economic collapse and political upheaval of the 1990s inflicted on the Russian psyche, would eventually join the broader European community.
The EU’s eastern strategy had run into trouble long before the conflict in Georgia. The EU derives most of its ‘soft power’ in the East from offering the prospect of EU membership to countries in the region. But in recent years so many EU governments have gone cold on further enlargement that few eastern neighbours realistically expect to join the EU soon. This has made it difficult for the EU to encourage political and economic reforms aimed at ‘Europeanising’ its neighbourhood.
The August 2008 war added to Europe’s woes. The conflict made it clear that Russia will actively oppose western influence on its borders. And while Moscow’s anger is primarily aimed at NATO, the war also brought EU-Russia relations to a new low. As the EU seeks to transform Eastern Europe in its image, it will from now on have to contend with an increasingly antagonistic Moscow. The EU’s underlying strategy should remain the same: the best way to keep Eastern Europe peaceful is to Europeanise it. But for the strategy to succeed, the EU needs to become more active in the neighbourhood. This essay argues the EU should offer a clear membership perspective to Ukraine, Moldova and other countries – not membership as such, for which the countries have yet to qualify, but a clear indication that they are welcome to join the EU once they meet the political, economic and other criteria of membership. The EU should take a more active role in defusing frozen conflicts in Eastern Europe, thereby reducing the vulnerability of its neighbours to Russian political and military pressure. And the EU should re-align its foreign policy institutions so as to seem more welcoming to those countries, like Ukraine, which are not on the path to membership but which are likely to join the EU at some point in the future. In the long run, the EU governments need to find a way to rebuild agreement on further enlargement. They should not treat EU membership as a rare privilege reluctantly bestowed on a lucky few countries but rather as the EU’s best tool for transforming the eastern neighbourhood. Eastern Europe’s existing weaknesses – and they are many, as this essay argues – should not be used as excuses for deferring enlargement indefinitely. Instead, the EU should step up its efforts to help the eastern neighbours address their weak economies and unstable political systems. And it should use a clear prospect of membership as an incentive to guide them through the difficult and necessary reforms. The EU’s approach to the Balkans – its active use of the membership prospect to entice Serbia and Bosnia to adopt EU values – serves as a useful precedent.
The EU’s new approach to its eastern neighbourhood should begin with Ukraine. Ukraine is tremendously important to Europe. It is the continent’s seventh most populous country, with a population bigger than Spain’s or Poland’s. Some 80 per cent of Russia’s gas exports to the European Union go through Ukraine. A stable government in Kyiv would give the EU’s easternmost members peace of mind; they want to be separated from Russia by a strong and stable country.
But most importantly, Ukraine has tremendous signalling power. It is the largest of the countries between the EU and Russia. It will set an example for others: for Moldova and Belarus, the EU’s immediate neighbours, but also for former Soviet republics further away from EU borders, like Armenia, Georgia or Azerbaijan. Ukraine, like the other former Soviet countries along the EU’s eastern border, has a looser relationship with the EU than the 2004-07 accession countries. It is more inward-looking, less sure of its European identity. It is run by Soviet-educated leaders, who are not fully convinced of the need for a European-style liberal democratic order. Russian influence, while mainly aimed at stopping Ukraine from joining NATO, also adversely affects Ukraine’s EU ambitions. If Ukraine successfully Europeanises against these odds, it will serve as an inspiration to other countries in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood.
The first section, ‘Europe and the eastern neighbourhood’ argues that the EU’s eastern policy, after its initial successes (enlargement to include ten former communist states between 2004 and 2007) ran into trouble (the subsequent collapse of the public support for enlargement), and now faces a challenge unseen since the end of the Cold War (a resurgent Russia). The second section discusses Ukraine’s relationship with Europe, pointing out why Ukraine, a large and introvert state dominated by Soviet-era bureaucracy, has been a difficult partner for the EU. The third section, on Ukrainian-Russian relations, makes the case that Moscow will seek to keep Ukraine in its orbit and may try to destabilise it to prevent the integration of Ukraine into western security institutions – but, equally, that Kyiv has become a lot more resilient to Russian pressure since gaining independence in 1991. The fourth section, on the EU’s eastern policy, makes a series of recommendations for how to adjust the EU’s approach to Ukraine to compensate for Russia’s destabilising influence in the region, and to better ‘sell’ the EU to Ukraine’s political classes and its oligarchs. And lastly, the essay ends with an appeal to EU member-states to show more foresight and determination in shaping Eastern Europe in the EU’s own image.
Please visit the Centre for European Reform website for a full version of the article
