Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Prospects of Greater Europe

Prospects of Greater Europe 
14:55 | 30/ 11/ 2006 
 
 
MOSCOW. (Igor Maksimychev for RIA Novosti) - Regrettably, in the past few
months the political atmosphere in Europe has been changing for the worse.
The European Union (EU) is being told that Russia is its worst enemy. 
There are forces that are trying to make Europeans forget that Russia is
strictly pursuing its policy of developing mutually advantageous
cooperation with the EU, that Moscow's main goal is to fit in into the
European and global political and economic context, that Russia's
potential and its ability to contribute to settlement of crises has been
growing every year. Contrary to reality, they are alleging that strong
Russia with independent policy is dangerous for the EU. Their aim is to
discredit President Vladimir Putin and his efforts to achieve
stabilization in Russia, consolidate its statehood, and revive its
international prestige. The forthcoming change of supreme power is a
sensitive issue in Russia's political development, and the irresponsible
opposition will try to use it in order to rock the boat. 
Poland's veto is formally aimed against Russia, but de facto it deals a
blow at the EU's sore spot - its ability to pursue a common international
policy. The EU will not be able to play any tangible role in world
politics if its individual members disavow its actions on the global
scene. In this case, it is likely to remain merely a modified zone of free
trade. 
The Polish precedent has opened the Pandora's box - there will always be
one or two dissidents among the EU's 25 members (it will have two new
members in early 2007). Now any member, even the weakest one and with no
influence whatsoever, can use the Polish experience, and threaten to wreck
joint efforts in the world arena. It can even carry out its threat if it
decides that other EU members did not pay enough attention to it. 
Poland's demarche has been an unpleasant surprise for Finland, which has
achieved much during its six month EU presidency, and prepared a good
foundation for the start of talks on a new agreement on strategic
partnership with Russia. A failure to reach a compromise in the
Turkish-Cypriot conflict does not call into doubt Finland's brilliant
diplomacy and its ability to find mutually acceptable solutions in most
intricate situations. However, the Finnish phase of EU policy has not seen
a logical conclusion in a major direction of EU foreign policy -
cooperation with Russia. Now this task will be inherited by Germany, which
will hold the EU Presidency in the first six months of 2007. 
Germany's agenda is extremely complicated. The urgent problem of defining
the terms and timescale of Turkey's accession to the EU is a subject of
disputes even among the ruling "grand coalition" in Berlin. At the same
time, in six months Germany is planning to find a solution to the problem
with the European Constitution, which was approved by some EU members but
rejected at the past year's referendums in France and the Netherlands. 
Incidentally, the draft constitution imposed certain limits on the rule of
unanimity in the EU, which allowed Poland to use its veto. However, the
French and the Dutch were emphatically against such limits for fear that
they might jeopardize their sovereignty. Today, nobody knows what changes
should be introduced into the European Constitution, and how this should
be done. 
It is not clear how to persuade the French and the Dutch to vote again, as
was the case with the elections in Ukraine (if public unrest similar to
Ukrainian Maidan is possible in these countries, it would be against the
constitution). A referendum has not yet been held in Britain, where most
of the population is negative about the European Constitution. To sum up,
the German Presidency will have enough headaches. 
Needless to say, the expiry of the current agreement on partnership and
cooperation will not become a legal problem in EU-Russian relations. It
provides for automatic extension until the sides agree on a new wording.
But it is abundantly clear that the agreement signed in 1994 does not
conform to the European reality, or to the level of EU-Russian
cooperation. A new agreement should become the first step on the road of
building a Greater Europe, which will unite Russia and the EU on the basis
of equality and mutual advantage. The new wording should rule out
incidents like the one with the Polish veto. 
The EU has long discussed the idea of different countries moving ahead at
different speed. A number of advanced nations will set an example for
others, which are moving more slowly. The Polish demarche is bound to
revive this discussion. If the EU as a whole does not start moving towards
Greater Europe for this or other reason, Russia will work for this goal by
promoting cooperation with those EU countries that are ready for this -
for instance, in the framework of the French-German-Russian troika. 
Igor Maksimychev is senior research fellow at the Institute of Europe of
the Russian Academy of Sciences 
-- 
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 for instance, in the framework of the French-German-Russian troika. 
Gia': Divide ut Impera.
Am.