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#13
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
September 20, 2001
Russia and the Abandoned Spouse Syndrome
By Werner Adam

FRANKFURT. In all its turbulent history, down to the present day, one of
the questions Russia has never found a satisfactory answer to is: Where do
we Russians, who live in a country of continental dimensions stretching
from the Baltic in the west to the Pacific in the east, really belong?
Intellectuals repeatedly fell out over this issue, until the Soviet Union's
founders indicated to them all that Russia was now the heartland of a
pioneering world power and should present itself as such, no questions asked.

Following the demise of the Soviet empire, the question not only came back,
but also gained added weight on account of a feeling expressed by Galina
Starovoitova, a political reformer murdered some years later in St.
Petersburg: "We've been left alone, and some people suffer the syndrome of
the abandoned husband whose feelings are hurt by the departure of a wife
whose loyalty he never doubted. It's the syndrome of the abandoned great
nation, and the tragic impact of such grievances on the course of history
is well known."

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, was already
evoking the "common European house," pledging his country's active support
in its construction. After his initial U.S.-oriented stance, Boris Yeltsin,
Russia's first freely elected president, also steered a European course.
And his successor Vladimir Putin appears to favor even closer ties to
Europe, although his efforts to regain Russia's superpower role via
"strategic partnerships" often involve insisting on the country's Asian
dimensions.

As a state, Russia belongs primarily to the old Continent, if not
geographically, then certainly in terms of history, politics and culture.
The question of what position it could and would like to occupy within
future European structures is highly relevant, not least in view of
impending European Union enlargement. Manfred Peter addresses this question
in an informative study, which he would like to be viewed independently of
his related activities at the European Parliament.

In his search for ways to strengthen Russia's involvement in the EU, the
author begins with a basic outline of the country's historical position. He
weighs Russia's interests against those of its neighbors both near and far,
shedding light on the very divergent concerns of other former Soviet
republics regarding European developments, and rightly pointing out that to
date, Russia, compared with Ukraine for example, has received preferential
treatment from the West, reservations notwithstanding.

In view of experience so far, Peter's assessment of the chances for closer
cooperation within the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States seems
overly optimistic. But he is realistic when he states the impossibility of
seriously discussing EU membership for Russia for the simple reason that it
literally comes nowhere near fulfilling a single one of the entrance
criteria. But in the author's view, even if -- one day in the distant
future -- this should change, there is "still the problem of the country's
political and military 'overweight' which, should Russia join, would
threaten the inner balance of the Union, one of the key founding principles
of its existence."

So what's to become of Russia? There is certainly no shortage of options
for strengthening relations between Moscow and Brussels, especially since
wide-ranging instruments for such cooperation are already in place. But the
fact remains: He who takes an elephant to bed may well get crushed. Not to
mention the Russian Bear.

Manfred Peter, "Russlands Platz in Europa" (Russia's Place in Europe).
Documents and writings of the European Academy in Otzenhausen. Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, 2001. 195 pp., DM98 ($46).
Sep. 20

 
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