At a time when the United States and Europe are focused on Russia's position in Syria, Moscow has also been making significant moves much closer to its periphery in Europe. On Thursday, a meeting of representatives from the Visegrad Group expressed "outrage" over increased pressure from Russia on the countries of the European Union's Eastern Partnership initiative not to sign trade and association agreements with the European Union.
What these two groups have in common is that all of their members were once part of the Soviet umbrella. The Visegrad Group consists of ex-satellites Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, while the Eastern Partnership consists of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The former are all members of the European Union and NATO, while the latter are not. Each of these states has complicated relationships with both Russia and Europe.
The Eastern Partnership program was designed to bring the latter group closer to the European Union, both politically and economically, and it has produced mixed results since launching in 2009 at the initiative of Poland and Sweden. While certain countries targeted by the program, such as Moldova, have become closer to the European Union in terms of trade links and political reforms, others, such as Belarus, have not. Still others, such as Ukraine, have tried to balance relations with the European Union and Russia without firmly committing to one or the other. Overall, the initiative has not been remarkable, but it did make some slow progress in Russia's periphery over the past year.
This progress was expected to culminate in November at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The European Union had made strides in its negotiations on free trade and association agreements with most members and expected Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia to move forward with the deals at the summit. While the agreements would fall far short of membership in the European Union, they would be important symbolically as steps toward long-term integration with the European Union. More important, they would be incompatible with Russia's own integration project, the Customs Union. Therefore, it appeared that the majority of the Eastern Partnership target states would be choosing Brussels over Moscow at the summit.
However, Russia has used a number of tactics to derail the European Union's goals for the Eastern Partnership. In August, Russia temporarily tightened customs controls of Ukraine's exports along the border, explicitly stating that Kiev can expect harsher and more permanent controls if it signs the EU agreements. Moscow has also cut off Moldovan wine exports to Russia, ostensibly due to safety concerns but in reality to make Chisinau think twice about its turn toward Europe. Russia also temporarily increased natural gas prices for Armenia, before reversing the decision after Yerevan announced that it would join the Customs Union. As a result, plans for Armenia to initial the EU agreements have been withdrawn from the summit's agenda.
Russia's moves have had a worrying effect on the Eastern Partnership target states, as well as the European countries in the Visegrad Group trying to woo them. Due to their common experience under Soviet domination, these countries share a wariness of Russian power that has only grown as pressure from Moscow has risen.
In many ways, this wariness ties into the situation in Syria. While pressuring the countries along its periphery, Moscow has also maneuvered into a position of perceived parity with the United States in the Syrian theater. Russia can no longer match the United States militarily as it did in the Cold War, but Moscow has for now called U.S. President Barack Obama's bluff on plans to use military action to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. The plan floated recently by Russia to get Syria to agree to allow an international force to remove the chemical weapons -- to be discussed between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Thursday -- has effectively delayed Obama's plans to strike.
It is unclear whether this will deter U.S. military action altogether, given the logistical difficulties of removing the chemical weapons and considering U.S. reluctance to trust the al Assad regime and its Russian backers on this proposal. But if it does, the Russians will look strong and on par with the United States on what has become a major international issue. This will make resisting Russian power and relying on U.S. guarantees much harder for the countries on Russia's periphery that are already struggling to counter Moscow's growing influence in the region. At the very least, it will ensure that the West remains focused on Syria and distracted from Russia's activities in Eastern Europe.
Read more: Putin Plays Up Russian Strength | Stratfor
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