LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
On Igor Yurgens' "Forget politics; what Russia and the EU need is a shared economic space"
Summer 2008
Sir,
Creating a common economic space between Russia and the EU, according to Igor Yurgens, “can only be fruitful if supported by political consent”. I agree, not just because I am a politician but because I know how much political motives really matter. Both politicians and the business community must clearly understand that to make economic and political progress we need each other.
European governments and parliaments (which I notice Yurgens did not mention) and the EU Commission have to work on a new general agreement of co-operation. This has been blocked for years by irritating meat trade squabbles between Poland and Russia, but with the new leadership in Poland that seems to be over, and there is also a greater readiness for consensus on the Russian side. But there are still reservations within the European Union reflecting uneasiness over domestic developments in Russia and the government’s use of bureaucratic “conditioning” for political reasons.
Europe’s and Russia’s security depends on co-operation, and so do both economies. Russia needs to re-shape its production base by using advanced European technology, and Europe needs Russian energy resources. Both sides also need expanded markets, so the present trend towards further alienation should be re-directed towards increasing economic and political co-operation, and from there, as Yurgens himself puts it, “…to even closer integration”.
Does this sound over-optimistic? Perhaps it does, especially since Russia’s concept of a sovereign democracy turns out to be a long way from the EU’s. But we politicians need optimism, so we must hope that Russia’s new president, Dimitri Medvedev will put into practice everything he has been telling the world about freedom and the rule of law.