Rethinking the Respective Strategies of Russia and the European Union

Abstract:

This publication is the final product of a project aimed at clarifying and evaluating the broad policy choices and strategies underlying the Russia-EU relationship. Conducted jointly by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the Carnegie Moscow Center from the autumn of 2002 through the spring of 2003, the project has been animated by several considerations.

One was the simple fact that the EU 'Common Strategy on Russia' is due to expire in June 2003. Clearly, much has changed – in the EU, in Russia, and in the character of their relationship – in the four years since the Common Strategy was adopted. Is the Common Strategy still adequate as a statement of the European Union’s 'strategic' vision? Is it a useful guide to policy? How well does it reflect the changing political and economic environment in Europe? Similar questions could, indeed should, be asked of Russian policy, and specifically of its 'Medium-Term Strategy' for the development of relations with the EU.

Secondly, the question of longer term prospects for the Russia- EU relationship was becoming more prominent – and in some respects more controversial – on the policy agendas of both sides. Is the relationship between Moscow and Brussels a 'strategic' one, in fact? What does each truly want from the relationship? What does each truly expect? As the imbroglio over the Kaliningrad transit issue demonstrated, the need to resolve concrete issues raised by EU enlargement, and thus to move beyond political declarations to tangible practical cooperation, has dramatized the need for clarity on these points.