Central and Eastern Europe in the World
Schneider SS 2006
Frederic
THE DIVERGENCES OF INTERESTS TOWARDS RUSSIA AND THE USA BETWEEN WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE AS AN OBSTACLE FOR THE CFSP OF THE EU?
Final paper for the seminar “European Idea in Central and Eastern Europe”
European University Viadrina
1. Introduction
1.1. The position of the European Union in the world
1.2. Defining concepts
1.3. Question and thesis
2. The relations between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia as an obstacle for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union (EU)?
2.1. The hard history of the relations between Russia and CEE
2.1.1. Before the XXth century
2.1.2. In the “first” XXth century
2.1.3. During the Cold War
2.2. Russia still wants to preserve its sphere of influence
2.2.1. CEE between Russia and NATO
2.2.2. Human rights in the relations between Russia and CEE
2.2.3. Rivalry about influence on Ukraine and Belarus
2.2.4. Economic dependence from Russia as a threat
2.3. The Old Europe and Russia
2.3.1. The Baltic pipeline and the good German-Russian relationship
2.3.2. Agreement about the War on Iraq
2.4. The weight of the divergences between Central and Western Europe
Russophobia, minorities, troops, NATO, sphere of influence (history), Chechnya, gas, Ukraine and Belarus
3. The relations between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the US as an obstacle for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union (EU)?
3.1. The history of a good friendship
3.1.1. Kosciusko’s participation to the Independence War
3.1.2. Wilson as an initiator
3.2.
1. Introduction
1.1. The position of the European Union in the world
The function of the European Union (first called the European Community) changed progressively since its beginning. The will of avoiding a new conflict which would oppose the European countries like during the Second World War was the origin of the idea of the European unity. Economic reasons were on the margin, keeping peace was the essential goal. The threat of war diminished and members of the Community noticed that to develop economically together gives a lot of profits: the economist Jean Fourastié called the period 1945-1973 Trente Glorieuses (Thirty Glorious Years) for Western Europe and especially the European Economic Community.
But in an always more globalized world, to have economic ties is not enough. You should also show that you are a united entity on the international arena. It’s why a new dimension of the European cooperation appeared: the common foreign policy. In fact, the European Union as a whole is strong but member states as independent countries are weak. If Europe wants to count in international economic organizations like WTO (World Trade Organization) and to take decisions in the process of maintaining peace in the world, it should speak with a common voice. Even if the European Union doesn’t have a dominant position in demographic terms in the world (450 millions inhabitants out of 6 billions inhabitants), it has a huge importance in economic data (30% of the GDP of the planet). So, we see that the potential is great but it should be reached to be effective. And the problem is that the EU should find agreements about the orientation of the Common Foreign Policy to be able to have a common position on the international arena. Unfortunately, heads of different member states have divergent points of view. Some claim that the last enlargement of the Union complicated the situation because of the divergences of interests on the international flat between Western and Eastern Europe.
1.2. Defining concepts and explanation of choices
The Maastricht Treaty replaced the European Political Cooperation by the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in 1993.[1] The 5th Title of this treaty is entirely devoted to the CFSP. The article J.1.2 of this defines the goals of this policy as followed: the protection of common values, basic interests and the independence of the Union, the reinforcement of the security of the Union and its member states in all possible forms, keeping peace and consolidation of international security and support for development of democracy and states of law in the world.[2] So, we see that these purposes turn around two axes: the security of the EU and its position in the world. Defining its principles, agreements about common strategies, joint actions and common positions and consolidation of systematic cooperation between member states are the means to reach the aim of the CFSP.[3] All these instruments are defined very generally and this is one of the problems which make that this is difficult to implement.
If we take the example of common positions, we see that there goal is to “określić nastawienie Unii do określonego problemu o charakterze geograficznym lub substancjalnym”[4] which is not very concrete. This instrument was not very used at the beginning: only 25 common positions appeared between 1993 and 1998. The number of common positions increased with the Amsterdam Treaty but it is still rarely used. Generally, common positions concern sanctions against third countries.
A common action is defined as “dodatkowy instrument zakładający ścisłą dyscyplinę państw członkowskich, jednocześnie zaś umożliwiający Unii wykorzystanie w pełni wszystkich środków będących w jej dyspozycji”[5]. It should concern areas in which member states have essential common interests. The European Council elaborated criteria which are supposed to show if there are common interests. These are: the geographic proximity, the existence of important interests in the area of political and economic stability of the concerned region or country and the existence of threats for security interests of the EU. The Council made clear also that it concerns the policy of disarmament of Europe, non proliferation of nuclear weapons and economic aspects of security. The Council of the European Union is the institution responsible for common actions. It decides unanimously which are the impact, the goals, conditions of realisations and time of lasting of common actions. Common actions are binding politically but not legally and there is an opting-out possibility. Support for democratization of Serbia-Montenegro and actions of stabilisation in Burundi are examples of commons actions. In practice, “rzadko dochodziło do skutecznych przykładów współdziałania rożnych organów Unii i państw członkowskich przy realizacji wspólnych działań”[6].
The Amsterdam Treaty added a new instrument: common strategies. Also here, there should be unanimity in the Council. It concerns general policies towards countries and a region: there is a common strategy towards Russia, another one towards Ukraine and one more towards Mediterranean region.
The CFSP has advantages. “Z punktu widzenia państw członkowskich wspólna unijna polityka zagraniczna służy do powiązania swojego losu z innymi państwami europejskimi w coraz ściślejszej Unii, co stanowi podstawowy interes każdego z nich”[7]. Member states want to realize a part of there own interests in the area of foreign policy: this is the principle of solidarity. They support sometimes other member states in areas in which they don’t have direct interests to obtain there support in other questions. Countries took conscious of the fact that, acting together, having the whole Union with them, they can realize effectively there interests. There is a price to pay for these advantages: member states must give up there own interests to support general interests of the Union. The role of the CFSP is to coordinate these interests.
We can perceive many imperfections of the mechanisms of the CFSP: the decisions are generally taken at the unanimity and are not binding. It makes this policy weak. The fact that the member states don’t agree very often about many questions makes it much weaker because these imperfections would not be so serious if member states would agree generally. It is why to have common interests towards different countries and in different areas are crucial elements for the CFSP.
The second major concept which should be defined is the notion of “Central and Eastern Europe”(CEE). We will consider eight countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. These states have been chosen because they all entered the EU in 2004 and they were communist until the end of the 80’s or the beginning of the 90’s (in the contrary of Malta and Cyprus). We can divide these countries into three groups because of historical and geographical reasons. The Baltic States were under the dominance of the Soviet Union and were a part of it during the Cold War. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia were satellites of the Soviet Union and members of the Warsaw Pact. Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia.
This can have different definitions and we chose this only because it is the most relevant one for the subject of this paper. Some define it also as the “Visegrad Group”: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary[8]. Some add to this Bulgaria and Romania, other ones even ex-Yugoslavia. It doesn’t have precise borders.
This paper will analyse the relations of CEE with the United States and Russia and compare it with the relationship between Western Europe and these countries. It will be focused on Poland and Baltic States in the relationship with Russia because of the bad historical experience of these countries with this superpower and on Poland in the second part because of the “special relationship” between Poland and the US. Slovenia will be on margin because of its specific historical past and of the relative lack of demographic importance.
1.2. Central question and thesis
Is a Common Foreign Policy of the European Union possible ? Can’t we say that the last enlargement of the EU complicated the situation because of the divergence of interests between CEE and Western Europe ?
The argumentation of this paper will be founded on the fact that CEE and Western Europe have different historical experiences which explains why they have different interests. However, it will also show that the problem is not so simple: there are other factors which influence these relations, the line of conflict doesn’t divide the EU into Western and Eastern Europe and you cannot say that relations between countries are simply “good” or “bad”.
2. The relations between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia as an obstacle for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union (EU)?
2.1. The hard history of the relations between Russia and CEE
2.1.1. Before the XXth century
Central Europe has always been between two huge powers: Russia and Prussia. At the beginning, Russia was a country on the margin of Europe. Progressively, it became hegemonic and wanted to enlarge its influence in Europe. It wanted to have borders with Western Europe powers, it is why it attacked many central European countries. The partitions of Poland (made in common with Prussia and Austria) at the end of the XVIIIth century illustrate this very well. Russia reached its goal and succeeded to have borders with Prussia and Austria. Until the First World War Central and Eastern Europe was under domination of three Empires: Russia, Prussia and Austria.
2.1.2. In the “first” XXth century
The end of the First World War changed the situation. Central Europe countries obtained there independence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary appeared. One more time this region was between two powers (the Soviet Union and the Weimar’s Republic and then the Third Reich) but this time these were animated by destructive ideologies (since 1933 in Germany). The new appeared states were very fragile and were obliged to act together to protect against them. Unfortunately, they could not unify easily.[9] Even if you take the Baltic States, which should have a closer cooperation between them than other CEE countries because of common interests, you can notice no real cooperation: “Kein baltischer Präsident stattete einem anderen baltischen Staat zwischen 1934 und 1940 einen Besuch ab. Dies war ein deutliches Zeichen dafür, wie wenig den drei Republiken selbst ihre Zusammenarbeit bedeutete.”[10] In this situation, the Soviet Union had no problems to invade Poland and Baltic states.
2.1.3. During the Cold War
The Soviet Union made CEE free from the Nazis in 1944-1945. It reached this situation enlarging its sphere of influence. Baltic States became a part of the USSR and other CEE countries became progressively communist between 1944 and 1948. Some could claim that the Baltic States citizens didn’t suffer more than Russians in the USSR and that they were both victims of communism. But even if the country was called “Soviet Union”, it is obvious that Russians were dominating in this country and citizens of Baltic States on the margin. Moreover, in a sense, Russians “chose” communism and Baltic States were forced to accept the system from outside.
“Soviet interests in Central and Eastern Europe were of three kinds: strategic, political-ideological and economic.”[11] It means that the USSR wanted to adapt the production of CEE countries to its needs and to have allies in the “Cold War”. This found place with the creation of an economic organization- the COMECON- and a political alliance- the Warsaw Pact. In practice, Moscow was taking all the decisions in order to satisfy its interests. The CEE was under control of the Soviet Union and it was not sovereign. The USSR imposed an authoritarian regime. When local communist authorities allowed a modicum of political and cultural freedom to emerge (in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in Poland in 1980), it was quickly followed by demands to end Soviet hegemony and withdraw Soviet troops.[12] Each time, it finished in blood. In Hungary, even the general secretary of the party has been executed.
Progressively, the system disintegrated in the 80’s and the democratic system emerged in both Russia and CEE. However, the hard past left traces in the bilateral relations.
2.2. Russia still wants to preserve its sphere of influence
Central Europe could adapt different kinds of behaviour towards Russia. The first possibility was the so-called “decisive Westernization” which would consist in integrating with the West as quickly as possible and to cut ties with Moscow because “it was dangerous, unstable, unpredictable and unable to build a sustainable democracy and a non-imperial form of government”[13]. This would be conflicting and it would be the worst issue for the CEE-Russian relationship. The “reluctant Westernization” implies CEE as a friendly bridge between Russia and West. The “in-between option” means a rapprochement with Western Europe and a distance from Russia as equilibrium. “Easternization” is a return to Russia.