Double progress. Two fundamental aspects of the reality of European life are coming into sharper focus and making radical progress: a) relations with Turkey; b) dialogue with Russia.
As regards Turkey, the High Representative of the EU, Federica Mogherini, and the European Commissioners Mr. Hahn and Mr Stylianides are in the country at the moment, to discuss the development of cooperation at a higher and broader level with the Turkish authorities. Ms Mogherini stressed that this visit highlights the “strategic importance of EU-Turkey relations”. Does it need pointing out that these objectives imply quite simply letting go of any idea of Turkey joining the EU?
The EU's relations with Russia are vastly more complicated and evolutions in these call for more in-depth explanations and commentary.
EU-Russia: indispensable and permanent links. Certain aspects of the links between Europe and Russia go beyond what is generally taken into account. One example is the fact that electrical energy in Ukraine is produced by Russian nuclear power stations, which Moscow continues to supply. Observers found out about this in detail when, on 3 December, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Mr Yatsenyuk, announced that the Zaporijia power station, the largest in Europe with its six reactors, had experienced a short circuit a few days earlier (on 28 November). The French daily newspaper Le Monde described the situation on 5 December, from which we learned that in Ukraine nearly half of electricity production is supplied by four atomic sites featuring 15 reactors with a total output of 13 GW. According to Jan Haverkamp, Greenpeace International's nuclear expert, all of Ukraine's nuclear power stations are potentially hazardous (the one at Chernobyl, the scene of the well-known tragedy which unfolded in 1986, was finally closed down in 2000).
It is worth pointing out that the new Ukrainian Minister for Energy, Volodymyr Demchyshyn, described it as inevitable yet politically difficult that Kiev buys its electricity from Russia.
This situation is another reason why EU/Moscow dialogue needs to be resumed as quickly as possible.
Mutual blackmail? On top of the technical and political reasons calling for EU-Russian dialogue to be taken off ice, there is the considerable economic factor resulting from the stemming of the trade flow. Admittedly, Moscow is currently shouldering the greater burden: it is having to deal with the financial crisis (it is no secret that the Russian currency has collapsed). But it would be a serious miscalculation for the EU to assume that its own export losses will be any less; the agricultural supplies formerly destined for the Russian market could be gone for good. Additionally, some calculations suggest that German exports to Russia concern 300,000 jobs which would be lost in Germany, not Russia!
Mr Putin said (in an interview with Mr Bernd Musch-Borowska from NDR Radio) that his country will gradually learn how to produce a number of the industrial products, even highly sophisticated ones, that it currently imports; Russia is not condemned to sell gas and oil in order to buy what it needs: it will produce machinery and consumer products. This column has additionally already reported the concern caused in the EU by Moscow's announcement of an end to the gas pipeline South Stream.
And the military aspect? The importance of the military plank in EU-Russia relations is quite clear. But in this area, the EU does not act alone: this competence is governed by NATO and in that framework, a dinner was held last week between the Allied foreign ministers. Our twice weekly publication EDD 752 carried a report on this. To sum it up: Germany and Italy, supported by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, took position in favour of resuming dialogue with Moscow by proposing a meeting of the NRC (NATO-Russia Council) to start with. Poland, the Baltic States and Canada opposed this. However, there was a consensus on the possibility, or the need, depending on how you look at it, for improving military communication between NATO and Russia. Germany was particularly insistent on this point, lamenting the fact that no contact has been resumed, even though the Russian army is particularly active in the air and that you have to go back as far as May 2014 for any high-level contact between the Russian and the Allied military. The secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, stressed however that “the channels for political dialogue remain open and military contact between NATO and Russia continues”, but went on to add that the desire for such contact is needed on both sides and that they need proper contact, at both diplomatic and military level. This will “prevent situations which could get out of control”.
It is quite clear: the principle of EU-Russia dialogue exists in the military domain, but for this aspect as well, this is dependent on Russia playing the game.
(FR)