EU-Russland: Die vier gemeinsamen Räume

In diesem Policy Brief stellt Michael Emerson vom Centre for European Policy Studies die Frage, ob die am 10. Mai vollzogene Unterzeichnung der vier ‚Fahrpläne‘ durch die EU und Russland ein neues Zeitalter in den Beziehungen einläutet.

The new roadmap 

On the 10 th of May the EU and Russia signed four ‘roadmap’ documents at summit level in Moscow, on the Common Economic Space, the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice, the Common Space of External Security and the Common Space on Research, Education and Culture. This was the culmination of two year’s work since the May 2003 summit that decided in principle to create the four spaces as a long-term project. It was intended also to give new momentum to the relationship, after seeing that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1994 had not become a motor for anything very substantial, while the subsequent phase (in 1999) of swapping common strategy documents also led nowhere in particular. 

Does this new attempt to give structure and momentum to the relationship do something more substantial? Does it mark a new era in the relationship? Does it bear any relationship to the massive symbolism on display in Moscow the day before, as world leaders joined in the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II? 

Maybe not so many people will read the 49 pages of the official texts defining the four common spaces. 

Some may set out with good intentions, but discover that the first objective reads: 

development of harmonized and compatible standards, regulations and conformity assessment procedures, where appropriate, including through enhanced regulatory dialogue and cooperation between responsible institutions and a reinforcement of the institutional capacities. 

The average citizen will close the book at this point. Yet the really determined scholar will march on through the texts, searching for the essence with unfailing discipline. He or she will discover that it goes on and on like this, with almost 400 bulleted action points, where the action is mostly phrased in terms of ‘cooperation’ or ‘dialogue’, which is becoming the ultimate Euro-Russki diplomatic-bureaucratic borsch. Some among the 400 points are precisely operational – to say that there were none would be to go too far. But the main message is this: the EU and Russia are still in a state of profound mutual ambiguity. They know that they have to try to make the best of living together in the same European home, but do not yet know how to do it. The partners seem to parody the old Soviet joke from the workplace in the factory: ‘We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us’. The Euro-Russki variant seems to go like this: ‘We pretend to be converging on common European values and they pretend to be helping us do so’. 

But let us do our homework seriously. After all, the two parties spent two years in allegedly tough negotiations. For the EU Council President Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, said: “Today we have reached agreement on the four spaces, including the most difficult elements”. President Vladimir Putin said: “I want to emphasize that this result was achieved through hard work together and an ability to reach mutually beneficial compromises. This work was not easy. Our European partners displayed their best qualities as negotiators and as people who had their sights firmly on getting results.”

To read the article in full, visit the Centre for European Policy Studies website.