Elysée serves up Russia-friendly menu

Date: 17/03/05

ON FRIDAY 18 March, Russian President Vladimir Putin will arrive at the Palais d'Elysée to dine with the leaders of France, Germany and Spain. Unlike his meeting with US President George W. Bush in Bratislava last month, this meal will not be served with a side dish of chastisements for Russia's backsliding on democratic principles.

French President Jacques Chirac is concerned that if Putin were barracked over free media and civil rights, the Russian leader would be isolated. So this Friday Chirac will call for a "multi-channel" dialogue with Russia, meaning in practice a European position distinct from that espoused by Washington.

In doing so the French president, along with his Spanish and German counterparts, José Luiz Rodríguez Zapatero and Gerhard Schröder, hopes to make sure US and central European criticism of Russia does not become Western criticism of Moscow - damaging trade and energy interests and leaving Chirac's vision of a multipolar world adrift.

"One of the key ideas of France, which diplomats try to say, is that nothing is really possible without Russia," says Thomas Gomart, head of the Russia programme at L'Institut Français des Relations Internationales. "Everyone wants to avoid Russia's isolation especially after the Orange Revolution [in Ukraine]. The situation is very uncomfortable for Russia."

If the situation is uncomfortable for Russia, then so too for Putin personally. After his unsubtle and ultimately inept foray in Ukraine, the Russian president needs to reassert his statesman's credentials at home. Meetings with other important western leaders, who don't criticise his brand of 'managed democracy', are just the ticket.

But where does the quadripartite meeting leave the EU's policy towards its biggest and most strategically significant neighbour?

To new member states, such courtship and the accompanying failure to address Russia's flaws borders on negligence, creating a sense of false stability, which can only erode with time. Such diverging views appear to lay waste to any pretence that the Union can speak with one voice on such an important foreign policy issue.

This problem is not new and all concerned acknowledge that 25 voices make it more difficult for the EU to achieve its policy goals. Chirac's bilateral courting of Putin is symptomatic.

According to a draft report which the European Parliament is to discuss in May, attempts by the Council of Ministers and the European Commission in early 2004 to address "major flaws in the EU's policymaking procedure" vis-à-vis Russia have "not resulted in sufficient improvement".

Yet Chirac's decision to hold the dinner meeting - and its Russia-friendly menu - is not without its benefits for Europe. The US's overt pressure on Russia is likely to increase anti-western sentiment in Russia - at least as long as Russians equate democracy with the corrupt old days of Boris Yeltsin. Presenting Europe as Russia-friendly could help stall that trend among ordinary Russians - so long as there are few credible opposition forces.

Helping Putin save face may also work in the EU's favour. The wooing will make it more difficult for Russia to reject the 'four spaces agreement' currently under negotiation, anchoring relations and helping the EU achieve its goals.

No doubt Russia will continue to try and extract concessions up to the last moments before a 10 May EU-Russia summit. But Putin is unlikely to reject a deal, particularly since world leaders will have gathered in Moscow the day before, on 9 May, to celebrate the end of the second World War.

But although the four spaces have been under discussion since 2003, the agreement is only stopgap and non-binding.

The true test of the EU's resolve will come when member states try to agree to a framework for relations to replace the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement which runs out in 2007.

There are signs, at least among Brussels diplomats, that an EU common position could emerge. Whether this is taken on board in Europe's 25 capitals is yet unclear.

Any common position is unlikely to put an end to grandstands of the sort Paris will see this week, but it may reduce Russia's ability to use such occasions to exploit the EU's differences of opinion.

Preview of a meeting on 18 March 2005 in Paris of the Heads of States or Government of France, Germany, Russia and Spain. The host, French President, Jacques Chirac, called for a 'multi-channel' dialogue with Russia, meaning in practice a European position distinct from that espoused by Washington. At a meeting in Bratislava in February 2005 US President, George W. Bush, had criticised Russia for backsliding on democratic principles but the French President had warned not to isolate the country.