EU-Russia relations: time to break the stalemate?
By Abel Riu
02/04/2021
“A Common European Home from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” That was the vision of the last general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. Thirty years after the breakup of the USSR, this dream is farther than ever, as the state of relations between the EU and Russia has reached its lowest point, with a process of deterioration that has dramatically accelerated since the 2013-2014 Ukraine crisis, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the beginning of the war in the Donbas. Since 2018, mutual accusations of interference in elections and domestic affairs, the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and most recently the discord over the Navalny poisoning and his detention and sentencing to 2,5 years following his return to Russia have brought the relationship to a deadlock.
In this context, while some voices are calling for a shift to a less combative approach, some European member states say the Kremlin’s actions are only getting worse and therefore need an even tougher response. In early February, the world witnessed how Russia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov outplayed and humiliated EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell during a press conference during the latter’s visit to Moscow, calling the EU an ‘unreliable partner’ and condemning leaders of EU states for allegedly ‘lying’ about Navalny’s poisoning. Lavrov also used this opportunity to condemn the sanctions policy against Russia over the annexation of Crimea, denouncing them as ‘unilateral and illegitimate restrictions’ and further lecturing Borrell on how the EU is resorting to methods from ‘the colonial past’.
One of the issues that Lavrov raised was Spain’s repressive actions against Catalan political and civil society leaders. To justify Russia’s repression against its dissidents. Lavrov mentioned the Catalan political prisoners’ case as an example of courts taking politically motivated decisions in the EU This was a warning shot across the bow and suggested the EU should not meddle in Russian internal affairs as it could backfire. All this happened while Russia expelled three diplomats from Germany, Poland and Sweden for allegedly attending ‘unsanctioned protests’ in support of Navalny.
A few weeks later, on March 2nd, the EU members agreed for the first time to apply the Global Human Rights Regime to impose sanctions on Russian officials responsible for Navalny’s detention and prosecution and for repressing the protests that followed his arrest.
As a reaction to this decision, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia will choose a “response that would best serve Russia’s interests,” adding that the relevant state agencies would draft their proposals and submit them to the Kremlin. Besides, Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that “there are no relations with the European Union as an organization” and accused the EU of “destroying the entire infrastructure of these relations through unilateral decisions.”
Ukraine, the turning point
The Ukraine crisis marked a watershed in EU-Russian relations. In December 2013, president Viktor Yanukovich’s decision to withdraw from signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement –part of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative, launched in 2009– sparked protests and the beginning of an internal conflict, with a critical geopolitical dimension between Russia and the West. In February 2014 Yanukovich was overthrown, and a few weeks later Russia annexed Crimea. After weeks of unrest in Ukraine’s South-Eastern regions, in April-May a military conflict erupted in the highly industrialized region of the Donbas following an uprising that received the support of Moscow and which has lasted until today.
In July 2014, the EU responded to Russia’s actions by adopting a series of sanctions on Russia: diplomatic sanctions (suspension of bilateral EU-Russia summits with indefinite effect), individual sanctions (travel bans/asset freezes on persons and organizations), sanctions against Crimea (a ban on trade and investment between EU and Crimea), and finally, economic sanctions, targeted at Russia’s financial, defense and energy sectors. For its part, Russia responded with counter-sanctions banning around half of EU agri-food exports, such as fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy products.
In March 2016, the five guiding principles of the EU’s Russia policy were set, which included insisting on the full implementation of the Minsk II agreements to resolve the conflict in the Donbas before economic sanctions against Russia were to be lifted. Other points included in the EU guiding principles were the pursuit of closer relations with the former Soviet republics in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Central Asia; increased resilience to Russian threats such as energy security threats, hybrid threats, and disinformation; engaging selectively with Russia on a range of foreign policy issues, among them cooperation on the Middle East, counter-terrorism and climate change; and increasing support for Russian civil society and promoting people-to-people contacts.
Although most EU member states consider that the principles must be upheld, five years after its conception there is a need to revise and analyze to what extent these goals are being achieved. The clearest example is the (effective lack of) implementation of the Minsk II agreements and how they are linked to sanctions against Russia, as facts show that neither the Ukrainian authorities nor the Russia-backed rebels comply with them. Heavy weaponry has not been withdrawn from war front areas, ceasefire violations take place regularly, and Ukrainian authorities are not moving forward in implementing measures to effectively guarantee local autonomy and the organization of regional elections in the rebel-held territories. As long as all Western pressure is placed on Russia, Kyiv is in no rush to implement its part of the agreement as it keeps receiving financial and military support from the West, while its Russian foe keeps being economically weakened by sanctions. These have not achieved their purpose, as Russia has not changed its stance on the issue.
Considering recent developments, some EU members such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania or the Baltic states would advocate a new approach worded in harsher language, and that would be more closely integrated with the Russian policy of the Biden Administration in Washington. Be that as it may, if the EU’s stance does not turn toward a more flexible approach, it is quite likely that EU-Russia relations will continue in stalemate due to the conflict in Ukraine, in a lose-lose situation that blocks cooperation in several strategic areas. For these reasons, some voices within the EU diplomatic establishment are acknowledging the fact that the stance on Russia is outdated and too focused on the Ukraine conflict and that there is a need to move on.
Confrontation, cooperation, and the Nord Stream II
Borrell’s visit to Moscow, and the reactions that followed, highlighted Europe’s lack of consensus regarding how to approach Russia. Some European states are reluctant to sacrifice the economic benefits of close relations with Russia. Italy has proposed economic cooperation and engagement on regional conflicts with Russia, calls joined by other members such as Greece, Cyprus or Hungary, and French president Macron is among those calling for a more cooperative approach with Moscow based on the EU’s interest, in line with the calls for a so called “European strategic autonomy”.
During the last years, the EU’s stand on Russia has been influenced by the convergence between the US’s interests and Central and Eastern European member states’ mistrust of Moscow. These countries are precisely those most unwilling to trust the main responsibility over their security to anyone but to the United States, thus being quite reluctant when it comes to Macron’s calls to build a more sovereign and geopolitical EU ready to defend itself against external threats. At the same time, Moscow looks to continue its old strategy of circumventing the EU as a supranational body by cultivating bilateral ties with its individual member states.
The Nord Stream II project reflects these internal divisions well and Moscow’s divide-and-rule approach. The pipeline is conceived to double the capacity of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany to 110 billion cubic meters per year, which represents more than half of Russia’s overall pipeline gas exports to Europe. Led by Russia’s Gazprom (50% of the ownership) with Western partners (German BASF/Wintershall 10%, French Engie 10%, German E.On 10%, Austrian OMV 10%; and Dutch Shell 10%), the pipeline is more than 90% complete and scheduled to come into operation this year.
In January, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to block the pipeline construction work, with 581 votes in favor, 50 against, and 44 abstentions, calling on the EU to review relations with Russia in light of Navalny’s arrest. Despite the European Parliament’s calls to stop the Nord Stream II construction, Angela Merkel immediately reaffirmed her support for the project.
The U.S. has consistently opposed the pipeline’s construction, with Joe Biden calling it a “bad deal for Europe”. It has imposed sanctions against Russian and European firms in an effort to stop the project on the grounds that it poses a threat to EU energy security and Ukraine’s independence, as Ukraine will lose part of its importance as a transit territory for half of the gas circulating from Russia to the EU. These are measures that are not helping to improve the transatlantic relationship after the damage done during Trump’s presidency.
The fact is that the only thing that would change with Nord Stream II once fully operational are the routes by which that gas enters European markets. Russian gas now covers roughly 40 percent of the EU’s total gas imports and will do so for the foreseeable future. If completed, the new pipeline could carry over a quarter of those Russian exports, but it would not tangibly increase Europe’s overall dependence on Russian gas. Besides, it could be argued that the US sanctions are closely related to its interests in the rapid development of the shale gas industry and more abundant supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which has provided EU countries with an alternative source of supply that will continue to expand in the future as a competitor to Gazprom.
Washington’s position towards Nord Stream II recalls that of Reagan’s administration regarding the West-Siberian gas pipeline. Constructed in 1982-1984, it was conceived to complement the transcontinental gas transportation system between Western Siberia and Western Europe, and was seen by several EU members as an opportunity to reduce its energy dependence on oil from OPEC. Washington was afraid that Western Europe would become dependent on Soviet gas supplies, and in 1981, it implemented sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the pipeline, including American and European ones. As happens today, the US acted fearful of greater economic integration between the EU and Russia, and thus interdependence, in what constituted one of the most serious crises between Western allies during the Cold War.
Building the EU’s “strategic autonomy” on Russia?
As happened in the past, the US moves seek to prevent what it perceives as a potentially greater economic interdependence –and therefore, possible alignment of interests– between the EU and Russia. In this sense, the interests of the US and EU countries’ such as France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary or Portugal differ in some important matters, among them the scope and intensity of economic relations with Russia, the bloc’s fifth most significant trade partner. This divergence also includes issues relating to security and stability of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the EU and Russia’s shared neighborhood, where the US can afford and may be interested in a more confrontational and less cooperative approach towards Moscow than most EU members.
The Biden administration has made clear that one of its priorities in foreign policy will be to hold a tough line on Moscow. It is therefore time for the EU as a whole to choose whether it wants to be dragged by growing US-Russian hostility, and therefore caught in a possible collision between the two countries, or to start furnishing concepts such as “strategic autonomy” with real content and developing a stance toward Russia based on its strategic interest, especially in issues such as climate change and global warming, health care and efforts to combat pandemics, management of economic interdependence, energy relations, and regional and international security.
In the case of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the current escalation, and the military buildup in the region are a matter of growing concern. In this sense, the two EU members (France and Germany) that together with Russia and Ukraine are part of the “Normandy Format” negotiating framework for the resolution of the conflict in the Donbas, should reinvigorate the peace process towards granting political concessions from both conflicting sides, and lead renewed calls for the re-establishment of constructive dialogue between Russia and the EU on the matter.
Given the diverging approaches, it is unclear whether the EU 27’s leaders will be able to adopt an updated joint position on Russia anytime soon. In any event, opting for a cooperative approach on economic and security issues with Moscow, based on lowest-common-denominators of EU members’ interests and concerns, might be a step towards a more pragmatic partnership that is more effective than the current stalemate in terms of building peace and stability in Europe.
Abel Riu is an analyst and President of the CGI, interested in Russia and post-Soviet affairs.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CGI or its contributors. The designations employed in this publication and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the CGI concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers.
