July 4, 2007
Red mist: Russia’s threat to European unity
The German presidency of the EU will be remembered for the deal on fighting climate change and the outline agreement on a replacement for the constitution.
But aides to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso’s speak of another less remarked upon achievement of Angela Merkel during her stint in the hotseat: the development and delivery of a tough European line towards Vladimir Putin - epitomised at the fractious Samara summit in Russia.
After years of disunity and fawning by Gerhard Schroder, Ms Merkel’s predecessor, and Jacques Chirac, the former French president, Europe now has a set of leaders prepared to be frank with Moscow. Nicolas Sarkozy, whose family hail from Hungary, and Gordon Brown are not starry-eyed about Putin.
But I see trouble ahead. Ms Merkel has been replaced by Jose Socrates, the personable socialist Portuguese prime minister, who seems to have been rather impressed by the lavish hospitality he received at the Kremlin during a visit in May.
His aides remark on how he was allowed to stay inside the Kremlin walls (a rare honour for a prime minister of a smallish country, apparently). Socrates is an avid reader of Russian literature and gave a lecture at the weekend to visiting Brussels-based journalists of its role in European culture.
When challenged by a Lithuanian journalist - who remarked that he too had read Tolstoy in the original Russian (and not by choice) - Socrates seemed to take umbrage. He rejected the journalist’s suggestion that you have to push Moscow before it pushes you.
"I’m not the guy who is going to raise tensions," Socrates said. He thinks a more conciliatory approach might be worth trying - after all EU-Russia relations are at an all-time low - but does a Portuguese prime minister really have a better understanding of Moscow than those who lived on the Soviet front line?
Poland, already fighting to rewrite part of the EU constitution, won’t be impressed if Socrates goes soft on Putin, neither will Merkel, Sarkozy or Brown. Barroso, a former political rival of Socrates in Portuguese politics, has also made great play of the need to stand up to Russia.
If there is a change of tone and substance it will expose again the problems associated with changing the EU presidency every six months. The new treaty will change things, and if Tony Blair ever ends up as the full-time EU president (a job due to be created in 2009) Moscow will face a new and more predictable foe.
We have also heard that Portuguese are as of yet not entirely sure of how to handle the Central Asian issue that they have been passed on by the Germans. Sources tell us that apparently it is going to be guided out of the Embassy in Moscow, as no-one in the Portuguese MFA knows where the region is on the map. This is exactly the sort of signal we should send to the region as we attempt to develop an independent strategy towards them.
Posted by: europhobe | July 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm | Report this commentDespite Socrates’ personal standing and his funtion in the six months to come, efforts to counter the latest developments in Russian foreign poilcy are still possible. Wes Mitchell argues in an articel for the Atlantic Community that Poland and Germany could first reconcile and team up to confront Russia in terms of energy policy.
The Case for German-Polish Rapprochement
Posted by: Lars H. | July 16th, 2007 at 11:06 am | Report this commentDespite Socrates’ personal standing and his funtion in the six months to come, efforts to counter the latest developments in Russian foreign poilcy are still possible. Wes Mitchell argues in an articel for the Atlantic Community that Poland and Germany could first reconcile and team up to confront Russia in terms of energy policy.
The Case for German-Polish Rapprochement
Posted by: Lars H. | July 16th, 2007 at 11:06 am | Report this commentDespite Socrates’ personal standing and his funtion in the six months to come, efforts to counter the latest developments in Russian foreign poilcy are still possible. Wes Mitchell argues in an articel for the Atlantic Community that Poland and Germany could first reconcile and team up to confront Russia in terms of energy policy.
The Case for German-Polish Rapprochement
Posted by: Lars H. | July 16th, 2007 at 11:06 am | Report this commentConfrontations between EU and Russia , as well as USA and Russia, are fabricated by the neocon media and others, Europa and USA must work with Russia to make a smooth transition from the Oil/Gas Economy to the Hydrogen-Fusion-Ethanol-Solar-Turbines-Geothermal-
-clean coal-water desalination-etc. Economy, we know Oil/Gas is just 10-15 years more, the smart thing is for all to work together for an easy transition and creating the new jobs,new Industries and new solutions,new food systems and new mobile office apps, the new world, we need adults in charge, not the warmongers with an inferiority-religious complex that we have now in power, it’s time to grow up and lift all.
in the Arctic Circle issue , all the countries around must share the ground floor, to each its share of frontage,make a deal and start looking for the goods together, lets go !
Posted by: blogger | August 10th, 2007 at 5:07 pm | Report this comment