Russian visit to calm fears of EU expansion

Date: 10/07/1997

By Mark Turner

IT IS no coincidence that Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin is coming to Brussels next week.

Two days after the European Commission releases its Agenda 2000 on EU enlargement, and a week after the NATO summit in Madrid which saw new members invited into the fold, his visit will be a crucial piece of face-saving for a country feeling slighted and on the defensive.

Although Moscow has not yet sounded off about European Union expansion in the same way as it did over NATO, there is growing concern in Brussels that it may begin doing so before long.

Stuck in the Cold War mentality, Russian President Boris Yeltsin has so far appeared more concerned about the encroachment of western military rather than economic power.

But suddenly, with the battle over NATO more or less resolved, attention is now turning to the prospect of a trading superpower eroding its markets and political influence.

“Of course we are concerned,” said a spokesman for Russia's mission to the EU. “We want to know how enlargement will impact on our trade and economic relations. As a result, we are calling for some kind of consultation process during membership negotiations.”

Although the EU's response to that, and a host of other enlargement issues, will not be known until the Luxembourg summit in December, the Commission hopes that next week's meeting will pre-empt any ill will that could emerge after it releases the Agenda 2000 on 16 July.

“There is no hiding the fact that this visit is as much about political goodwill as concrete achievements,” admitted one Commission official.

Russia's relative silence so far on EU enlargement is in some ways more ominous than overt criticism.

It is almost inevitable that when the reality of former provinces joining the Union begins to sink in, some politicians will try to turn it to their advantage. Moscow is, for example, already warning that it cannot accept any erosion of its transit rights in the Baltics.

“If we play it safe, the Russians will not make a fuss. But we are on rocky ground. The moment that we start pushing for countries like Estonia to become members, we may start to hear some complaints,” said another Commission official.

The need to avoid this is perceived in Europe to be so important that five Commissioners are taking part in the meeting with Chernomyrdin next week, including President Jacques Santer, Hans van den Broek (foreign affairs) and Sir Leon Brittan (trade).

Not everyone is so concerned, however. Socialist MEP Constanze Krehl, an eastern German closely involved in EU-Russia parliamentary relations, points out that, so far, “the Duma has really demonstrated no concerns about Union enlargement”, adding: “All our conversations have focused on NATO. Moscow does not even seem to care about Baltic EU accession.”

She nevertheless suspects that Russian politicians will start to look at the issue in the wake of Madrid, and predicts some interesting times ahead.

If Agenda 2000 does spark off difficulties, it could stoke fires already burning brightly over the question of market access to the Union.

A visit by Brittan to Moscow last month, aimed at encouraging Russia to reform its economy and join the World Trade Organisation, resulted in a high-level snub by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and angry complaints about EU anti-dumping practices.

Although Commission sources claim that the episode is water under the bridge, there will be some tension in the air as the two sides discuss what Russia needs to do to earn the title 'market economy'. This is no theological argument. Under present conditions, the Union reserves quite wide powers to block Russian products on the grounds that they are unfairly cheap because of direct or indirect state support. It has done so 14 times in recent months.

“We really cannot understand the position of the EU. We have no state regulation of foreign trade, no state subsidies to agriculture and industry, and no support even through cheap energy,” said a Moscow spokesman.

“The method by which the Commission determines what 'normal market prices' should be does not take account of our competitive advantages, such as proximity to energy sources and short transit routes to the Union.”

Given the potential pitfalls of this debate, organisers are trying to divert attention to other items on the agenda for next week's two-hour meeting. “The main aim is to add impetus to new avenues of cooperation,” said a spokesman for Van Den Broek.

That will include science and technology deals, and new cooperation programmes in transport, education and even space travel.

Santer and Chernomyrdin will also launch a 'major initiative' on border controls and crime prevention, and give the somewhat delayed EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement a high-level push, through the Tacis technical assistance programme.

Whether all of this can convince the world that Europe and Russia are dynamic partners is another matter.

A recent summit between Santer, Yeltsin and Dutch Premier Wim Kok passed with barely a ripple, more notable for being delayed than for any hard and fast decisions. Next week's meeting may, in turn, be most noteworthy simply as Chernomyrdin's first visit to Brussels, long after trips to Washington, Beijing and Tokyo.

“We suddenly realised earlier this year that he had never visited us. It did not look good,” said a Commission official.