Ahead of this week’s Vilnius Summit, European diplomats should have no illusions about Russia’s next move.
Vladimir Putin is not going to stop at his success with Ukraine. Having pressured his Ukrainian counterpart President Viktor Yanukovich into rejecting a new EU association agreement with Kiev, the Russian president will be turning his attention to Georgia and Moldova.
These are the only two of six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries that remain committed to signing the trade accord in Vilnius. Three other countries apart from Ukraine—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus—have already turned their back on the deal.
Georgia and Moldova are now faced with a very tough choice: either they can stick to their commitment to move closer to Europe and risk a fierce economic and trade backlash from Russia, or they can also ditch an association deal with the EU.
Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry, has starkly warned against taking the first option. During a private gathering two weeks ago in Brussels that was attended by some of the EU’s top regional experts and diplomats, he was unashamedly threatening.
Rogozin said that Russia would close its borders to goods from any country signing the EU association agreements. Migrant workers would be banned from finding jobs in Russia.
Those are not idle threats; we saw when Russia─with the full intention of causing huge damage to its neighbor’s economy─stopped over 30 percent of Ukrainian exports destined for the Russian market. Georgia and Moldova are very much aware that Russia can use its energy sources and its big markets as weapons to make them toe the line, too. Their economies are not sufficiently independent of Russia, nor are their energy resources diverse enough to be able to deflect Russian blackmail.
The other option for Georgia and Moldova is to bow out from signing the EU association agreements. They know that without their big neighbor Ukraine in the European “club,” it will be extremely difficult for them to fend off intimidation from the Kremlin.
Moldova is particularly vulnerable to Russian pressure because of its breakaway region of Transnistria. There, a pro-Russian nationalist clique is doing its best, with the help of Russia, to undermine the Moldovan government’s pro-European moves. With Kiev in the Russian camp, Moldova has lost Ukrainian support to resolving this long-standing dispute.
Ukraine itself has squandered its chance to exercise strategic leadership in the region. As a neighbor of Moldova and with EU support, it could have played an important role in supporting Moldova’s claims to territorial integrity and in helping it with its border and customs management. That is no longer a possibility.
It’s not going to be easy for Georgia, either. The country’s new leadership does not want to forego its economic and strategic ambition to move closer to Europe, but it also wants to improve relations with Russia.
For the EU itself, the consequences are serious, too. If Moldova and Georgia end up not signing the EU accord, the EaP─already seriously damaged by Ukraine’s decision─will be dealt a fatal blow.
If Moldova and Georgia do sign, the EU will need to move quickly to counter any Russian backlash. That means both sides implementing the trade aspects of the accords as quickly as possible. Also, the EU could help supply Moldova’s energy needs via Romania.
Even beyond the EU, there is huge interest in what happens at the upcoming Vilnius summit. This was especially noticeable during the Atlantic Council’s annual Energy and Economic Summit that was held last week in Istanbul.
Armenian delegates were still trying to come to terms with their own government’s decision not to sign at Vilnius after Russia applied huge pressure on Yerevan. “Armenia’s leadership should have found a way not to miss this perhaps unique opportunity for beginning this Europeanization process,” said Salpi Ghazarian, director of The Civilitas Foundation in Yerevan. “Now look at how Putin dealt with Ukraine.”
Turkish diplomats admitted that they are in a privileged position because Ankara is negotiating to become a member of the EU. But they, too, were disappointed over Ukraine’s decision. Turkey was keen on the benefits of the EaP for its neighbors and for Ukraine. Better trade access and more efficient border controls would have benefitted the region as a whole.
Yet the most striking aspect of the debates in Istanbul was how attractive the EU still is to its Eastern and Caucasian neighbors. This is true not only for economic and trade reasons, but for political and social reasons too, with values playing a big role.
That political compass is still there. But it is no longer sufficient to counter Russia’s crude short-term manipulation of economic resources. Post-Vilnius will require a major rethink about how Europe may be able to counter that negative influence.
Comments(7)
Being a student of International Relations here in Ukraine for the past 4 years, I must admit that Ukraine has taken a wise decision, not only for its economic aspects but rather for its social and democratic aspects as well. Being a close neighbor to Russia, Ukraine has taken a good stance as it’s a decision for fore coming generation not only for today. What we have seen today in Cyprus, Portugal and Italy one must say that the EU market has brought to its knees their economies and living standards. No doubt EU is an attractive economic zone but for a country like Ukraine still it’s a long way to go. Ukraine first of all needs to stand on its own feet, make its house in order, and step out of debates about language barriers like Russian or Ukrainian. After seeing sessions at the Ukrainian parliament we can easily judge the differences. I think Ukraine needs to bring in many social and economic reforms. God has blessed Ukraine with many blessings and intellectual people and I am sure they must play their role inside instead of looking at someone else. Yasir
I am from Moldova and I really hope that the people we elected will act in our interest. The majority of population is only pro-European Union. The opposing side is the Communist Party, which always used lies to get seats in parliament and now to sell my country to Russia.
Dear Judy, Could you explain, when you say 'Russia's crude short-term manipulation of economic resources' you mean the same crude manipulation of economic resources that USA have been using for many years to suffocate Cuba, Iran and other countries? Thank you!
No, not the same. USA has never used its resources against another country in order to stop its independent economic development, but rather for political / security / military reasons. Blockading a country run by Islamist fundamentalists that have declared their intentions of destruction of other countries, on more than one occasion, from obtaining weapons of mass destruction comes nowhere near what Russia's doing. And don't pretend you don't understand the difference, there are enough hypocrites in the world as it is. What Russia is doing in relation to its neighbors: 1) is seriously damaging to both parties in economic sense both today and for the future; 2) results in straining of political and social relations between them; Russia will never stop using such cheap tricks into making their neighbors do what they want. This is not a one-time thing. Ukraine is not rejecting EU economic ties for the existing ones with Russia, they are actually foregoing ALL their independent activities (both economic and political, both present and future) in exchange for existing economic ties with Russia, because Russians are going to use this very same leverage over Ukraine whenever they dislike their step and Ukraine will have to forfeit their long-term interests each time because each time taken as a singled out event Russian ties will mean more to Ukraine, but if you combine ALL of these interests over so many years and compare them to Russian ties only, what do you get then?
As one of the politicians in Poland said: Russia has never been able to make business because they simply mix up business and politics. That is why Poland avoided Russian investments in strategic area of the economy and they are only up to 2% from the total such investments ...I think Russia is not USA, even though Americans are no better than Russians. Russia hits basics: they are willing to make people starve and die of cold just for some political interests; this what they do, always did and will always do...(they made 1000 000 deaths in Moldova by artificial starvation immediately after the war and "raped" the nation' soul by using killing quotas on all possible categories of the population and especially on intellectuals...and has never asked an apology/or any kind of compensation to those suffering from hunger, deportation and death (like Germany did with Jewish people)...Some may say that it has been in the past and it should be forgotten....but as we can see very well, Russia did not change a single bit from what is was half a century ago... Although I am not naive to believe in EU motherly love, I can understand that it is just an expansion of the markets and a possibility to sell EU products somewhere else...that is what happened with Romania and Bulgaria – local economy is almost inexistent and both countries are an excellent consumer market for EU producers. So what is in for Moldova? Personally, I think that countries like Moldova should take advantage of this “conflict” between East and West and benefit from it in order to build economic growth and energetic independence: example, using European funds to make solar energy factories (there is plenty of sun there and no one can steal or "manipulate" the Sun)
The current government of Georgia is not pro-European. There are one or two pro-European ministers; but they are a facade, not decision makers. Decisions are made only by the Oligarch, who rules the country with his henchmen, even if he officially resigned and do not have any official status. And this man is a typical soviet oligarch. He will bargain, just like Yanukovych. Unfortunately the West didn't understand that Saakashvili's defeat doesn't mean the victory of Democracy, but the return of post-soviet mafia politics.
Being from Moldova, I feel that despite the fact that the EU was all the time telling stories that Moldova is at its best doing the EU homework, now, when Ukraine went back I feel that the EU was doing that for Ukraine only, to make them get closer, but the EU doesn't care about Moldova anyway... too sad.
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