Jacqueline Gower

Introduction: The European Union and Russia

The EU’s multilevel system of governance means that the member states participate in the formulation and implementation of the Union’s common policy towards Russia within the framework of the Brussels institutions while quite legitimately continuing to maintain bilateral relationships with Russia. In itself this is not unusual: the same is true in the case of the EU’s foreign policies in general. However, the case of Russia is of particular importance and relevance for understanding the interplay between the formulation and conduct of foreign policy at the national and multinational (EU) levels and in particular for assessing the impact of the former on the coherence and effectiveness of the latter. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, a significant number of member states have very extensive and intensive bilateral relationships with Russia, often officially designated as ‘strategic’ or ‘special’ partnerships and framed by bilateral treaties and agreements. Chief among them are four of the large member states, Germany, Italy, France and also more recently Spain. However, a number of smaller states such as Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Finland and the Netherlands also have very close (although in the case of the latter, not always trouble-free) relations. Frequent bilateral summits take place and there is a dense network of meetings at political, official and civil society levels often resulting in important agreements, for example on energy, trade, security and culture.

Introduction: The European Union, Russia and the Shared Neighbourhood

THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) AND RUSSIA’S ‘shared neighbourhood’ of Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia was, according to Löwenhardt, writing in 2005, ‘an economic and diplomatic battlefield’ (Löwenhardt 2005, p. 7). The period that has followed has seen this agenda develop into a mainstream political debate on the prospects for European security and spill over into the military domain with the conflict in South Ossetia in August 2008. This conflict and the Ukrainian energy crisis in January 2009 have contributed to the generation of a new post-Cold War low point in EU–Russia relations. Apart from the frozen conflicts scattered around the region, it was not until the creation of the EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), initially outlined in 2003, that attention began to focus on the states comprising the shared neighbourhood. The ENP was a strategy designed to extend a European zone of peace and stability eastwards, and it came in response to the imminent enlargement of the EU’s membership into Central and Eastern Europe in 2004. The ENP was considered an essential step forward in establishing stable relations with its new neighbours, but, as Haukkala has argued, Russia’s self-exclusion from the ENP has had the effect of creating a competitive agenda between the two actors (Haukkala 2008, p. 38), and has failed to create the positive political dynamics that were intended. The launch of the ENP had coincided with the re-election of Vladimir Putin as Russian President and the projection of a more assertive Russian foreign policy agenda. Russia had failed to prop up the Shevardnadze regime and to prevent the Saakashvilli government coming to power in Georgia’s ‘Rose Revolution’ in autumn 2003, and had likewise failed to divert the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine which brought the more pro-Western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, to power after the original elections in December 2004 were declared void. The view from Moscow towards the ENP and the very concept of a shared neighbourhood was thus increasingly driven by the perception of a threat from Western encroachment into what Russia considered to be its traditional sphere of influence. Where the states in the region are themselves concerned, there is an obvious tension between, on the one hand, the attractions of a pro-Western agenda which promises aid, technical assistance and eventual integration into the single European market if not membership, and which would have positive benefits for trade and investment, and EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES Vol. 61, No. 10, December 2009, 1685–1687

European Union–Russia Relations at the End of the Putin Presidency

At the close of Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term it seemed a good time to take stock of the current relationship between Russia and the European Union (EU) and consider what are likely to be the main challenges—and hopefully also opportunities—under his successor, Dmitry Medvedev. This special issue is based on four papers presented at the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) annual conference at the University of Portsmouth in September 2007under the auspices of the newly established EU–Russia Research Network sponsored by the British Association of Slavic and East European Studies (BASEES) and UACES. The motivation for this initiative was the belief that our understanding of the dynamics of the extremely complex relationship between the EU and Russia would be enhanced by scholars from these two often rather distant academic communities collaborating on a shared research agenda. Although not part of the original project, Anne Haglund Morrissey’s paper on the Northern Dimension has also been included, as it fits so well with the general themes explored in this special issue. As all the authors testify, when Putin was elected President in 1999 there was widespread optimism that after a decade of a great deal of rhetoric but little in terms of concrete results, there was a real opportunity to develop the strategic partnership both Russia and the EU had committed themselves to construct (Gower, 2007). The EU’s Common Strategy on Russia and Russia’s Medium-Term Strategy for Relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union, both published in 1999, demonstrated a shared recognition of the importance of the relationship and identified a large number of areas where cooperation would be of mutual interest. Also in 1999, the Northern Dimension was launched (see article by Haglund Morrissey) and the following year the Energy Dialogue was initiated in the confident expectation that it could become the centrepiece of mutually advantageous practical cooperation (see articles by Hadfield and Romanova). The EU’s new European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) also opened up possibilities for EU–Russian cooperation in the security arena. During the following three years the agenda was inevitably dominated by the need to resolve a number of difficult and politically sensitive issues arising from the EU’s planned ‘big bang’ enlargement, which would create new border restrictions on the movement