RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS
5. RUSSIA--EU: THE INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION - RAS 13, JRL 6571
SOURCE. Timofei Bordachev, Rossiia i Evropeiskii Soiuz: trebuetsia departament [Russia and the European Union: A Department Is Needed]. Brifing Moskovskogo tsentra Karnegi [Briefing of the Moscow Carnegie Center], Tom 4, Vypusk 3, March 2002
The recent friction between Russia and the European Union (EU) over the issue of land access to the Kaliningrad exclave, argues the author, highlights the generally inept way in which Moscow handles its relations with the EU.
Why is Moscow so inept? His answer is twofold:
* The immediate problem is that foreign policy makers lack adequate knowledge and understanding of the EU -- both of its policies and of its inner workings.
* The underlying problem is that government structures are not adapted to the task of dealing with the EU.
Russian officials are so ignorant of EU affairs that they often discover what EU positions are only in the course of negotiations. For example, negotiators from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade were not expecting the EU to expand the list of steel products subject to import quotas in late 1991, although such measures had been stipulated in advance in an EU Act to protect the interests of home producers. "It is not surprising that in January 2002 the negotiations collapsed."
To take another example, the Russian side in its "Energy Dialogue" with the EU (1) stated that Russia aimed to become the main supplier of oil and gas to Europe. They did not realize that this statement ran directly counter to the EU Conception of Energy Security, approved last year by the European Commission, which gives priority to diversifying the geographical sources of the EU's energy imports.
By force of inertia, most Russian policymakers "perceive the EU of 2001 in the categories of the Common Market of 1979" -- that is, they still think of the EU as a rather loose association of independent countries with which it is possible to deal separately. In fact, all issues of economic relations with non-member states must now be settled with the European Commission in Brussels, which has acquired many of the functions of an EU government.
The author points out that unlike Russia the countries of Central-Eastern Europe have within their government structure strong sections and departments specializing in European integration. Moreover, it is not only countries aiming to join the EU that need such departments. Thus Switzerland has long had a special Ministry of European Integration Affairs. It has no wish to join the EU, but it must adopt EU norms if it is to be a successful trading partner of the EU. So must Russia.
This is not to say that Russia's government structure makes no provision at all for relations with the EU:
* Negotiations with the EU fall into the sphere of responsibility of one of the deputy prime ministers (currently Viktor Khristenko). But the official list of his responsibilities contains 17 points, and negotiations with the EU come 16th!
* The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has an EU Section within its Department of European Countries, but its staff is too small to provide the necessary level of analysis. Other ministries have no section or department specializing in the EU.
* There is an interdepartmental government commission on relations with the EU, but it gathers only sporadically and does not have high status.
* EU programs for aid to Russia, such as TACIS, provide some consultative services, but only on a temporary basis (up to a year). Financing tends to depend on the personal attitudes of officials in the Moscow representative office of the European Commission.
Thus the burden of dealing with the EU falls mostly on officials whose main concerns lie elsewhere.
The author proposes the creation of a special government agency or "Coordinating Center for Ties with the EU." He suggests various ways in which close working relationships can be facilitated between such an agency and EU officialdom. Thus the agency could be organized into departments that correspond to the subdivisions of the European Commission, and young Russian officials could be sent to study at EU institutions such as the European University at Florence, (2) the European Institute of State Administration at Maastricht, and the College of Europe at Bruges. [That is all very well, but it is no less important to ensure close ties between the new agency and the old ministries. Otherwise it will prove of very little practical benefit. --SDS]
NOTES
(1) A collection of documents pertaining to the Energy Dialogue has been published by the Ministry of Energy of the RF as a supplement to the journal Energeticheskaia politika [Energy Policy] under the title: Energeticheskii dialog "Rossiia--Evropeiskii Souz" [Energy Dialogue "Russia--European Union"] (Moscow, 2001).
(2) I myself had the opportunity of spending a month at the European University. It is a very relaxed place in beautiful surroundings just outside Florence. Though funded by the EU, its links with EU officials and their work are tenuous. (I hope to receive some indignant messages proving the contrary, and will be glad to summarize them in the next issue of RAS.) My own modest suggestion is that instead of sending young officials there to learn about the EU the Russian government send harassed older officials there for a rest cure.
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