Avoiding a New Iron Curtain

By Andrew Wilson and Nicu Popescu
European Council on Foreign Relations

As the leaders of the ‘grey zone' between Russia and the EU embark for a summit with the EU in Prague, attention is focusing on whether the EU should be meeting unsavoury figures like Belarus President Lukashenko. But there is a critical issue being overlooked - the EU's influence is evaporating in its own back yard, as the Eastern neighbourhood bounces from crisis to emergency and descends into the worst political, security and economic turmoil the region has seen since the end of the Cold War.

The EU will formally launch its Eastern Partnership strategy at tommorw's summit in Prague to accompany its existing European Neighbourhood Policy. The summit comes at a bad time. The EU and its neighbourhood are consumed by the economic crisis and a growing shadow of mutual distrust and fatigue cloud the relationship. Many EU leaders sniff at the perspective of sharing a platform with some of the not-so-democratic leaders of the East. But such feelings miss the point. If Moldova was like Estonia and Ukraine like Poland, there would be no need for an Eastern partnership.

EU relations with its neighbours have achieved much since the launch of the European neighbourhood policy in 2003. Now, all of EU's Eastern neighbours, except Belarus, trade more with the EU than with Russia. This was unthinkable a decade ago. Despite such economic trends, the EU is loosing political relevance in the East. Throughout the last years the EU has not managed to prevent the region from collapsing deeper into growing authoritarianism and instability.

Under the Eastern partnership policy, the EU pledges to help build "Western-type public institutions" and to remodel the Eastern economies through comprehensive free trade agreements. But EU soft power is slow power, and long-term visions are easily be thrown aback by short-term crises. Wars, energy cut-offs or fake elections do not let EU's efforts in the region to take root. But the EU is short of action partly because many EU member states are not convinced the EU should have a substantial policy at all, or are not willing to support it.

Crises in the Eastern neighbourhood - from the August war in Georgia, the January 2009 gas dispute in Ukraine and the post-electoral violence in Moldova - have all left EU's neighbours with fewer friends inside the EU at the worst possible time. Why should Europe care about the Eastern neighbourhood and offer its immediate assistance?

Economic, security and political crises in the region directly affect European interests. The EU is simply too interdependent with its neighbours to allow itself to ignore them. Recent crises in the neighbourhood put strain on internal EU solidarity and relations with Russia. They also affect the EU economy. Until recently, European companies benefited from huge positive trade balances with all Eastern neighbourhood countries (except oil-exporting Azerbaijan). In security terms, any talk of a new European security architecture and improved security cooperation with Russia can be disrupted by crises in the Eastern neighbourhood. For the EU it is easier and cheaper to invest diplomatic and economic support to states in crisis before their fragile state-building efforts come to a halt.

To avoid a less secure Europe, the EU has to complement its long-term agenda with shorter term policy action in the Eastern neighbourhood. Romantic summitry is not enough to push for an effective policy. The EU has to come with much more concrete offers to its neighbours and stop pretending as if the only driver of EU policy is its attractiveness. European neighbourhood policy is not philanthropy but serves a clear set of European security, economic and political interests.

To achieve its objectives the EU has to make attractive offers, and then use stricter conditionality. As a follow up to the Eastern Partnership summit it should initiate lower-level meetings of ministers of interior to discuss migration, visas and counter-terrorism. The future European Commission should also have a separate commissioner for the neighbourhood. The EU should also seek to integrate Ukraine and Moldova into the European energy market. And the EU should be much more involved in democracy building, as the slide into authoritarianism is at the core of many crises in the region.

The Eastern neighbourhood needs immediate and basic assistance to curb its crises. With its policy focused almost entirely on long-term engagement, the EU is in danger of not only returning to a divided Europe, but of instability spilling over the EU border as its neighbours crumble. And like the US and Mexico, growing gaps in living standards, in good governance and the rule of law will inevitably flow across borders.

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