LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Spring 2007

by Sjoukje Sandra Volbeda

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Sir,
The EU should certainly take a more strategic approach towards its eastern neighbours and use its economic and political weight to counterbalance President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to win back influence for Moscow. Russia has long used its gas supplies to exert pressure on its neighbours, but the EU too has many methods it can use to win over countries looking for support to open up their economies, hold free elections and lift media restrictions.

There are now promising opportunities for the EU to foster development in Ukraine, and to a lesser extent in Moldova and Georgia. EU efforts to help Moldova and Georgia resolve their regional conflicts and ensure Russia is engaged in the peace process will be tough but worthwhile.

The EU’s neighbourhood policy (ENP) opens up a whole range of programmes previously available only to accession countries. It provides new legal procedures that will enable beneficiary countries to sustain open market economies and genuinely democratic government structures, along with the institutional developments needed to make these new systems work. The ENP can also instil in our eastern partners the values that lie at the heart of economic, social and political freedom in the Union and of civil rights. It is quite rightly that ENP action plans must first be agreed by national parliaments.

But these programmes cannot be applied to undemocratic countries like Belarus. Urban Ahlin advocates active EU investment in democratic and economic reform there. Yet how can the EU invest heavily in these fields without government consent, given the government itself is the main target for transformation? EU investment in Belarus will be impossible so long as the current president remains in power and his opponents face imprisonment or harassment. Their only hope is micro-scale support with a low profile or better yet a non-existent one. Interestingly, Moscow is itself calling for economic reform in Belarus to make it more compatible with Russia’s market-orientated economy.

Meanwhile, in the EU’s coming negotiations with Russia over the renewal of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement which provides for trade liberalisation and closer relations, the Union should be taking a wider political perspective. The talks must go beyond energy issues and economic reform and find a way to resolve regional conflicts in our common neighbourhood, without sacrificing the goals of democracy and a free media.

Because there are so many different demands on the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours, it is time for the Union to reconsider the principle of differentiated membership. Government leaders may be far from ready to concede the point, but membership differentiation already exists in practice. Only some EU countries participate in the Schengen Treaty, for instance, alongside other non-EU nations, while EMU only unites certain member states. The option of excluding Turkish workers from the right to employment anywhere in the EU has already been raised, and if allowed would mean an adjusted form of membership for Turkey.

So why not allow European countries like Ukraine a specific affiliation to the EU, restricted to sectors where it complies with the Copenhagen agreements? Full membership is of course a long way off, but why not take that road step by step and make the journey visible to the people?