RUSSIA
AND THE EUROPEAN UNION’S
NORTHERN DIMENSION
ENCOUNTER OR CLASH
OF CIVILISATIONS?
Pertti Joenniemi
Danish Institute for International Studies
Alexander Sergounin
Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University
Nizhny Novgorod
2003
1
Published in Russia
by Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University Press,
Nizhny Novgorod
Pertti Joenniemi, Alexander A. Sergounin, Russia and the European Union‘s Northern Dimension: encounter or clash of civilisations?
Includes bibliographic references
1. Russia and the European Union‘s Northern Dimension. I. Joenniemi, Pertti. 1942 - II. Sergounin, Alexander. 1960-
ISBN
Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University Press, 2003
Pertti Joenniemi and Alexander A. Sergounin, 2003
Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………… 4
Acronyms…………………………………………………………………… 6
- Introduction………………………………………………………….. 10
- The Background and State of Affairs of the Northern Dimension...14
- The Russian Domestic Debate on the Northern Dimension……… 28
4.Russia’s Official Reaction to the Northern Dimension Initiative… 37
- Promoting Stability Through Economic Integration……………… 41
- Transborder Challenges…………………………………………….. 50
- Perspectives for Regional Co-operation……………………………. 78
- Kaliningrad in the Context of the Northern Dimension…………... 87
- Russia and Northernness…………………………………………... 106
- Conclusions…………………………………………………………. 112
References………………………………………………………………... 122
Northern Dimension’s Chronology…………………………………….. 141
Documents……………………………………………………………….. 145
Acknowledgements
A number of generous grants from different organisations made this book possible. In 1993, 1995-2002, the authors conducted several research projects on EU-Russia relations which have been sponsored by former Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI; since 2003 merged with Danish Institute for International Studies - DIIS). In 2000-03 the authors were also involved in a number of projects on European security and the Northern Dimension initiative funded by International Policy Fellowship programme (Open Society Institute), INO-Centre (Moscow), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,Finnish Institute of International Affairs and East-West Institute. This book is both an end-result and follow-up of these projects.
It is a pleasant duty to expresshere our gratitude to many colleagues who have helped us with especially useful advice or materials for this book. They include: Dr. Roy Allison, Head, Russian and CIS programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs (London); Dr. Pavel Baev, Senior Research Fellow, International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO); Vladimir Baranovsky, Deputy Director for Research, Institute of World Economy and International Relations (Moscow); Professor Barry Buzan, University of Westminster; Ambassador Yuri Deryabin, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences; Prof. Lyndell Fairlie, San Diego State University; Geir Flikke, Dr. Jakub Godzimirski and Dr. Iver Neumann, research fellows at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI); Graeme Herd, the Scottish Centre for International Security, University of Aberdeen; Dr. Lena Jonson, Senior Research Fellow, Swedish Institute of International Affairs; Dr. Wojciech Kostecki, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Political Studies (Warsaw); Gunnar Lassinantti, Project Leader, Olof Palme International Centre (Stockholm); Arthur Kuznetsov, Head of the Representative Office of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Kaliningrad; Igor Leshukov and Boris Kuznetsov, Centre for Integration Research and Programmes (St. Petersburg); Prof. Andrei Makarychev, Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University; Arkady Moshes, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences; Kari Möttölä, Special Adviser, Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Dr. Hans Mouritzen, Senior Research Fellow, Danish Institute of Foreign Affairs (DUPI; merged with DIIS); Dr. Bjørn Møller, Leader of the Military Restructuring Project, COPRI/DIIS; Dr. Ingmar Oldberg, FOA (National Defence Establishment), Sweden; Professor Klaus Segbers, Institute for East European Studies, Free University Berlin; Dr. Dmitry Trenin, Deputy Director, Moscow Carnegie Centre; Professor Ivan Tyulin, First Vice-Rector, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO); Prof. Håkan Wiberg (COPRI/DIIS); Prof. Ole Wæver, Copenhagen University.
Our special thanks to Dr. Yelena Gritsenko, our language editor, who helped to improve the quality of our text.
We are thankful to a number of research centres and institutions, such as COPRI/DUPI/DIIS, Denmark; SIPRI, Sweden; Institut Francaise des Relations Internationales, Paris, France; International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, UK; Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, Russia; the Scottish Centre for International Security, University of Aberdeen; University of Tampere (Finland) which provided us with excellent research environments and warm hospitality. Without their liberal support and help this work would not benot possible.
Pertti Joenniemi
Danish Institute for International Studies
Alexander A. Sergounin
Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, Russia
June 2003
1
Acronyms
AARI
AC
ARCDEV
BALTCOM
BASREC
BEAC
BEAR
BEATA
BSSSC
CBC
CBSS
CEE
CEG
CEPS
CIREA
CIREFI
CIS
COPRI
CS
DH
DIIS
DSS
DUPI
EBRD
EC
ECAT
ECE
ECU
EEA
Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute
Arctic Council
Arctic Demonstration and Exploratory Voyage
Baltic Communication System
Baltic Sea Region Energy Co-operation
Barents Euro-Arctic Council
Barents-Euro-Arctic Region
Barents Euro-Arctic Transport Area
Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Co-operation
Cross-border co-operation
Council of the Baltic Sea States
Central and Eastern Europe
Contact Expert Group
Centre for European Policy Studies
Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on Asylum
Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration
Commonwealth of Independent States
Copenhagen Peace Research Institute
EU’s Common Strategy on Russia
District heating
Danish Institute for International Studies
Diverse Second Shutdown System
Danish Institute of International Affairs
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
European Community
Environmental Centre for Administration and Technology
Economic Commission for Europe European Currency Unit
European Economic Area
EEC
EfE
EFTA
EIA
EIB
ENHPA
EP
ERDF
ESSN
EU
EURATOM
EUROREGIO
FEZ
FM
FOA
FP
GDP
GVM
HELCOM
HIV-AIDS
IASC
IBPP
IBRD
IBSFC
ICT
IEA
IFI
INPP
INTAS
INTERREG
IS
ISPA
IT
ITU
JHA
European Economic Space
Environment for Europe
European Free Trade Agreement
Environment Impact Assessment
European Investment Bank
European Network for Health Promotion Agencies
European Parliament
European Regional Development Fund
European Senior Service Network
European Union
European Atomic Agency
European region
Free economic zone
Finnish mark
National Defence Establishment (Sweden)
Framework Programme
Gross domestic product
Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit
Helsinki Commission
HIV-Acquired Immune Deficit Syndrome
International Arctic Science Committee
Institution Building Partnership Programme
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission
Information and Communication Technologies
International Energy Agency
International financial institution
Ignalina nuclear power plant
International Technical Assistance
EU’s programme on inter-regional co-operation
Information society
Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession
Information technology
International Telecommunications Union
Justice and home affairs
JRC
KSU
LIEN
LIFE
MFN
MGIMO
MINATOM MNEPRF
NATO
ND
NDA
NDEP
NDI
NDP
NeDAP
NEFCO
NEI
NGO
NIB
NIS
NOK
NPP
NSA
NTA
NUPI
NWWTP
OECD
OPC
OSCE
PA
PCA
PHARE
PIP
Joint research centre
Kaliningrad State University
Link Inter European NGOs
L’Instrument Financier pour Environnement
Most-favoured nation
Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Ministry of Atomic Energy (Russian Federation)
Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Northern Dimension
Northern Dimension Area
Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership
Northern Dimension Initiative
National Development Plans
Northern eDimension Action Plan
Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation
Northern European Initiative
Non-governmental organisation
Nordic Investment Bank
Newly Independent States
Norwegian crown
Nuclear power plant
Nuclear Safety Account
New Transatlantic Agenda
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
St. Petersburg Northern Waste Water Treatment Plant
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Operative Committee
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Parliamentary Assembly
Partnership and Co-operation Agreement
Poland and Hungary, Aid for the Reconstruction of Economies
Productivity Initiative Program
PPC
PRIO
R&D
RTD
RUSSTI
SAP
SAPARD
SEZ
SIDA
SIPRI
SME
SNF
SWWWTP
TACIS
TAIEX
TB
TEMPUS
TENs
TINA
TROS
UBC
UCTE
UK
UN
US
USA
VMS
WG
WTO
WW II
Project Preparation Committee
Peace Research Institute Oslo
Research & development
Research and Technical Development
Russian Short Sea Transport Investigation
Salmon Action Plan
Special Accession Programme forAgriculture
and Rural Development
Special Economic Zone
Swedish International Development Agency
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
Spent nuclear fuel
South West Wastewater Treatment Plant in St. Petersburg
Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States
Technical Assistance Information Exchange Office
Tuberculosis
Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies
Trans-European Networks
Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment
Training of Retired Officers
Union of Baltic Cities
Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity
United Kingdom
United Nations
United States
Unites States of America
Vessel monitoring system
Working group
World Trade Organisation
World War II
1
1. Introduction
Northern Europe no longer constitutes, in the way it still did in the early 1990s, a potentially precarious environment. The binary divisions of the period of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War are part of the past,and various threat perceptions, although still apparent, have significantly meliorated.
This change has allowed the Europe's North to turn, within a rather short span of time, from an area with very little and mostly state-regulated cross-border interaction into one of the most regionalised parts of Europe (Bailes, 1998). There has been an almost complete normalisation of relations and the region has, due to a rather dramatic turn-around, become a veritable laboratory of innovative ways to deal withthe divisive nature of borders. The process of europeanisation, with the North encountering Europe, has turned out to be a dynamic experience. The liberation from much of the pasthas provided the northern corner with a front seat in what Thomas and Tétreault (1999) call "the European race to regionalise".
The specific features of the European North imply that it also constitutes a challenge to the European Union. The area was, prior to the mid-1990s, essentially a rather unknown onefor the EC/EU. A need to show the flag and to think about it, surfaced with particular clarity with the Finnish and Swedish memberships in 1995. Enlargement implied that the Union was not just present in the region. The new and 'fuzzy' constellations of the region forced the EU to make use of its presence with the more northerly aspects gained by enlargement. Particularly the joint border with Russia, acquired in the context of Finland's membership, mandated reflectionas the EU became Russia's immediate neighbour. Initially, the Union focused in its statements on the need to avoid creating new dividing lines in the region as a result of the broadening, and one of the aims was to tie in a number of non-members, such asIceland, Norway, the Baltic countries, Poland and Russia into a network of political linkages, increasing interdependence and to contribute, through such measures, to building stability and prosperity in the region (Browning, 2002).
Whilst starting with a somewhat spontaneous approach, a more coherent policy emerged soon enough. In aspiring forco-ordination across the Union's various instruments and bureaucratic divisions, the EU haslaunched a number of strategies of its own, including theone on Russia. However, the Union has also settled for a kind of dimensionalism by singling out Europe's North in a particular manner. In order to provide greater focus, the Union approved in 1997, based on the Finnish proposal, the Northern Dimension Initiative (NDI). This initiative clearly resonates with region-building in aspiring to open the way for a more variegated and diverse geography in the European North.
By representing a rather innovative approach, the NDI has attracted a great deal of attention from both politicians and academics. The initiative is applied, it appears, as a departure in outlining political space at the edges of the European Union. It contains some short-term elements, but it may be alsoviewed as carrying a strategic vision of Europe's North, and it may perhaps augur a more regionalised Europe in general. As articulated in an official Finnish publication: "The ultimate goal of the Northern Dimension is to reduce all dividing lines" (cf. Hedegaard & Lindström, 1999: 6). As a form of innovative network governance that extends across and beyond hierarchies, including also actors other than states (cf. Jachtenfuchs, 2001: 254; Gänzle, 2002: 79), it aspires to reinforce positive interdependence as well as create overlapping configurations as these are conceived as constituting "an asset for security, stability and sustainable development in Northern Europe" (Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, 1999: 2).
Whilst aiming at an overcoming of the previous East-West bipolarity once and for all, the NDI treats Russia in a rather inclusive manner. It does so by endeavouring to incorporate Russia into a joint, and in the end, perhaps, a single northern political, social and economic space. Already at the outset, the NDI is premised on considerable equality in the sense that non-members are approached as 'partners' instead of separating between the applicants, countries which arepart of the European Economic Space (EES), and non-applicants. At the level of the basic geographic markers used to outline political space, the initiative blurs a division into East and West, and does so by paving space for a different marker, that of northernness. Such a choice could easily play into the hands of Russia, a country with a considerable number of northern qualities. It is also to be noted that the EU (West)-Russian border has been re-designed as a frontier, a metaphor that blurs distinct dividing lines and, at the same time, facilitates co-operation by making interaction in the 'frontier zone' appear natural (Browning, 2002; Parker, 2000: 7). Moreover, the initiative departs from a number of previous approaches by stating explicitly that Northern Europe, due to its particular nature, callsfor special policies, thereby allowing (Northwest) Russia to be treated in differentiated terms.
It is clear, against this background, that several fundamental questions can be raised with regard tothe Northern Dimension:
- Is the European Union really out to pursue a long-term strategy based on the blurring of distinctions between its inside and outside and breaking of various traditional self-other depictions, thereby challenging customary discourses on 'Europe' and European political space? This question is particularly pertinent in view of the fact thatthe EC/EU of the 1970s and the 1980s not only presumed the permanence of Europe's divisions but even depended on it (Judt 1996: 43).
- And in the context of blurring basic departures, to what extent are the relevant parties prepared to make use of the marker ofnorthernness, i.e. a departure which contains a considerable dose of ambiguity? Are they compelled to step outside the dominant and rather well defined co-ordinates of the East and the West in defining political space and to trade them for what has been sometimes called ‘the blank spot‘ of northernness?
- More particularly, can the Northern Dimension develop into a backdoor for a closer EU/Russia relationship? Has there been a consequent application of the options opened up on the side of the EU and how does Russia feel about such a route? This is of importance as the significance of the initiative, in most of its aspects, depends to a great extent on Russia’s reaction to it.
- The initiative strengthens, no doubt, Russia’s options to take part in ‘Europe-making‘. It confirms the existence of a partnership between the EU and Russia, and provides the unfolding of the relationship with an additional forum. Yet the question remains how far Russia is prepared to go in using the new openness as the NDI's differentiated nature may also have significant consequences for Russia’s own overall figure. In opening up for a Europe that is somewhat less closed and predetermined, it would also call for a more flexible and diversified Russia.
This enquiry thus focuses on the NDIbackground and appearance, and endeavours at evaluating the significance of such a move by singling out Russia's reactions, in particular. To what extent has Russia been interested, willing and able to embrace the NDI, an initiative furnished with a rather post-sovereign agenda of regional co-operation and network governance? How is the NDI viewed, taking into account that the initiative tends to go beyond a modern discourse premised on thegeopolitical and realist understandings which sanctified the boundaries of the state, and establishes a firm hierarchy between the core and peripheral areas such as those located in the north-western parts of the country? And more generally, has Russia been able to make use of the potential inherent in various border-related locations and the specific kind of marginality provided by the appearance of the EU-Russia borderin view of the fact that the NDI sets a playground with a broad variety of options for actors able to comprehend marginality as a resource (cf. Parker, 2000)?
The aim of this study is to search for answers to these more general questions, including the location of northernness in the Russian history of ideas, but in particular to review the developments in the sphere of economy and society, infrastructure, environment as well as ‘soft‘ security. The position of northernness is treated as an indicator to showwhether Russia has been able to use the newly opened‘window of opportunity‘ that might be there in the form of the NDI, and as aninitiative that might function as a bridge to 'Europe', therebybringing about a set of closer EU/Russia relations.
Finally, conclusions are drawn as to the significance of the unfolding political landscape in Europe's North and the role of the EU and its NDI in that context.
1
2. The Background and State of Affairs of the Northern Dimension
The northern part of Europe seems to have been rather quick to injectnew arguments and representations into the discourse on the post-Cold War Europe. Thedebate on theBaltic Sea region started already during the end-1980‘s, and the various notions concerning a Hanseatic League, a Baltic-Scandic link, Ostseeraum, etc. also yielded results (cf. Joenniemi and Stålvant, 1995). An extensive network of various co-operative vehicles has been developed, including cities, chambers of commerce, churches, universities, environmental organisations, and also states in the form of the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS). The plurality of spatial images further increased in the beginning of the 1990‘s with the establishment of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (BEAR) (cf. Tunander and Stokke, 1994). Taken together these various initiatives imply that over the recent decade, as argued by Alison Bailes (1998: 183), northern Europe appears to have turned into a veritable laboratory of innovative ways of dealing with the divisive nature of borders. The emerging political landscape is far less rigid than the previous one in being imbued with multilateral constellations and a considerable amount of regional formations.