Russia’s EU policy: multiple messages, absent strategy

Open Democracy, June 2011

On June 9-10, Russian and EU politicians will gather in Nizhny Novgorod for their regular bilateral summit. As always, numerous technical issues — from visa facilitation talks to Russia’s WTO accession — will be discussed, but the real interest will be the political side of relations, which have in recent days become more significant than at any time in recent years.

A key moment was the G8 summit in Deauville, when the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev not only shared the Western policy towards Libya, but also publicly confirmed that by violently oppressing his own people Gaddafi had de-legitimized himself. Internationally, this declaration can be understood in both normative (as a gesture of subscribing to the Western understanding of sovereignty as responsibility) and political (as a clear support to the coalition forces operation in Libya) senses. Yet Medvedev’s move has an important domestic context as well, since his position regarding Libya appears to be in contrast with explicitly critical to the West pronouncements by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov.   

"The prospects of reifying Medvedev’s good intentions are unclear, since they do not represent a conscious Kremlin strategy, but are more a by-product of the growing imbalances in a policy-making system shaken by uncertainties about the forthcoming presidential election."

The overt solidarity with the West that Medvedev expressed in Deauville can probably be explained by his growing understanding of the importance of Western support for his policies. It could certainly be argued that Medvedev rates partnership with Europe much higher than Putin did/does. However, the prospects of reifying Medvedev’s good intentions are unclear, since they do not represent a conscious Kremlin strategy, but are more a by-product of the growing imbalances in a policy-making system shaken by uncertainties about the forthcoming presidential election. Of course, the signs of greater political polarisation in Moscow may create new opportunities for EU’s Russian policy, however the grounds for scepticism seem to be much stronger.

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