Russia–EU Relations, or How the Russians Really View the EU

Abstract

The recent history and the current state of relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) reflect the geopolitical competition between the two powers over their contested neighbourhood – Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Although prioritizing the EU as its major trade and political partner, Russia is also conscious of its strategic interests in the ‘near abroad’. While there is little discrimination in the political discourse of Russian elites in relation to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in reality, as popular opinion indicates, those neighbours who openly show their allegiances to the EU – Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – have been increasingly categorized as hostile and unfriendly towards Russia. Public opinion remains strikingly congruent with and reflective of government foreign policy preferences.

Notes

Recorded by the EU–Russia Centre, available at <http://www.eu-russiacentre.org>, accessed 30 June 2010.

The Treaties of Rome were signed in March 1957 in Rome. They brought together France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries in a community that aimed to achieve integration via trade and economic expansion. The first treaty established the EEC, and the second the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). These two Treaties entered into force on 1 Jan. 1958.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) was established in 1949 for the countries of the Eastern bloc under the USSR's leadership, as an inter-governmental economic organization that included Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia, joined later by the German Democratic Republic and some other non-European socialist countries.

The document formalized the establishment of a military union with a number of European socialist countries under the USSR's leadership. Its formal title was the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance, but it was commonly known as the Warsaw Pact. It was signed by Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, Poland, Romania, USSR and Czechoslovakia on 14 May 1955 at the Warsaw Meeting of European States on Ensuring Peace and Security in Europe.

See the public lecture ‘Russia and New Eastern Europe’ delivered in Kiev on 31 March 2010 by Dmitriy Trenin, President, and Chairman of the Research Council, of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, available at <http://www.polit.ua/lectures/2010/04/22/trenin.html>, accessed 30 June 2010.

At the end of 1994, President Boris Yeltsin signed the decree ‘On measures to restore constitutionalism and rule of law on the territory of the Chechen Republic’ that signalled the start of the First Chechen War. The decree assigned the national armed and interior forces and the federal counterintelligence service to stabilize the Chechen Republic and disarm the illegal militia. More information is available at <http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/162452>, accessed 25 June 2010.

For more information see the PCA, available at the website of the EU delegation to Russia <http://www.delrus.ec.europa.eu/ru/p_330.htm>, accessed 6 May 2010.

Vladimir Shemyatenkov, Yevropeiskaya integratsiya: Uchebnoe posobie [European Integration: Textbook] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 2003), p.366.

Ibid.

Vladimir Zuev, Nadezhda Arbatova and Yevgeniy Khekhin (eds.), Rasshirenie YeS na vostok: predposylki, problemy, posledstviya [EU expansion to the East: premises, issues, consequences] (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), p.263.

Ivan Ivanov, Raschishchat' put' k zrelomu partnerstvu RF and YeS [Clear the Way for Mature Relations of RF and the EU], available at <http://www.ieras.ru/journal/journal2.2000/1.htm>, accessed 23 July 2010.

For example, limitations on the trade in steel goods according to the Agreement on the Trade in Certain Steel Goods Between the Russian Federation and the EU, signed in Moscow on 3 Nov. 2005. For further information, see <http://www.lawsector.ru/data/doc29/txa29936.htm>, accessed 25 July 2010.

Tatyana Vladislavleva, ‘Rossiya i rasshiryayushchiisya Yevropeiskii Soyuz: problemy i perspektivy’ [Russia and the expanding European Union: issues and prospects], Znanie, ponimanie, umenie [Knowledge, Understanding and Ability], 2005, No.2, pp.112–18.

There are two types of simplified transit documents for public transportation from Russia to Kaliningrad region and back: the first is issued by the Lithuanian consulate for individuals engaging in frequent travel between Kaliningrad and Russia by train, car and bus and is valid for three years; the second is for a single entry by rail. A decision on the possibility of simplified visa transit is the responsibility of Lithuania.

Sven Hirdman, Rol' Rossii v Yevrope [Russia's role in Europe] (Moscow: Carnegie Center, 2006), p.13.

For further information, see Kaliningrad oblast' news portal, 23 April 2009, available at <http://kaliningradnews.ru/?p=6332>, accessed 7 May 2010.

See the Kaliningrad oblast' news portal, 20 April 2010, available at <http://kaliningrad.ru/news/item/3942-калининградская-областная-дума-поддержала-проект-отмены-виз-для-жителей-евросоюза>, accessed 7 May 2010.

Weekend shopping tours to Helsinki are especially popular among the residents of St. Petersburg.

The treaty established the balance of power between the member states of two military unions, NATO and the Warsaw Pact; it also restricted opportunities to place conventional armaments along the border between the blocs and thus impeded the potential for attack and a large-scale aggressive war in Europe.

Igor' Dzhadan, ‘Chto sluchilos’ s DOBSE?' [What has happened to the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe?], Novosti press agency, 17 July 2007, available at <http://www.apn.ru/publications/article17436.htm>, accessed 7 May 2010.

Igor Yurgens, Alexander Dynkin and Vladimir Baranovskiy (eds.), Architecture of Euro-Atlantic Security (Moscow: Ekon-Inform, 2009), p.66.

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Nikolai Kaveshnikov, ‘Rossiya i Yevropeiskii Soyuz: tendentsii ekonomicheskikh otnoshenii’ [Russia and the European Union: trends in economic relations], Perspektivy, 2008, available at <http://www.perspektivy.info/oykumena/politika/rossija_i_jevropejskij_sojuz_tendencii_ekonomicheskih_otnoshenij_2008-09-20.htm>, accessed 7 May 2010.

News portal ‘Burida’. Official website of European Commission, available at <http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/countries/russia/>, accessed 7 May 2010.

Official website of Russian President, available at <http://archive.kremlin.ru/text/news/2005/05/88001.shtml>, accessed 7 May 2010.

M.L. Entin, ‘Sotrudnichestvo Rossii i YeS v sfere vneshnei bezopasnosti’ [Russia and the EU: Co-operation on security issues], MGIMO international conference, 19 April 2010: see <http://www.mgimo.ru/news/international_contacts/document150489.phtml>, accessed 30 June 2010.

The Economist's annual collection of predictions for the year ahead, ‘The World in 2010’, 13 Nov. 2009 (special edition of The Economist).

Interfax, 8 April 2010, available at <http://www.interfax.ru/txt.asp?sec=1483&id=131413>, accessed 7 May 2010.

Webpage of Gazpromexport. For further information see ‘Noravank Foundation’: Russian energy and European security: a transatlantic dialogue available at <http://www.noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=2662>, accessed 7 May 2010.

For further information, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Charter_Treaty>, accessed 8 July 2010.

For further information, see <http://www.ukrrudprom.ua/digest/Osenniy_mir_pered_zimney_voynoy.html>, accessed 7 May 2010.

Webpage of Valerii Yazev, available at <http://www.yazev.ru/publics [24].html>, accessed 25 June 2010.

Olga Potemkina, ‘The EU: Facts and Comments’, Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Science, Issue 58 (Dec. 2009), available at <http://www.edc-aes.ru/content/user_files/Image/58.doc>, accessed 25 June 2010.

Website of the EU delegation to Russia, available at <http://www.delrus.ec.europa.eu/ru/p_614.htm>, accessed 7 June 2010.

For further information, see <http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/russia/sum06_08/index_en.htm>, accessed 10 June 2010.

‘Polpred news’, available at <http://visa.polpred.com/upload/pdf/Migraciia_viza.pdf>, accessed 25 June 2010.

Nikolai Kaveshnikov, available at the analytical portal ‘Perspektivy’, available at <http://www.perspektivy.info/rus/desk/perspektivy_razvitiya_otnosheniiy_mezhdu_rossieiy_i_evropeiyskim_soiuzom_2009-1-13-25-50.htm>, accessed 8 May 2010.

Decision No. 2317/2003/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 5 December 2003, ‘Establishing a Programme for Enhancement of Quality of Higher Education and the Promotion of Intercultural Understanding Through Co-operation with Third Countries’, Official Journal of the European Communities, L 345/1. 31.12.2003. (Erasmus Mundus) (2004–2008).

From the materials of the project ‘Developing measures to promote co-operation in education with European countries in the framework of Road Map Russia–the EU’, realized in 2007 by the State University–Higher School of Economics by order of Federal Agency on Education.

‘Country Strategy Paper 2007–2013. Russian Federation’, available at <http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/russia/docs/2007-2013_en.pdf>, accessed 30 June 2010.

For further information, see documents of the EU delegation to Russia, available at <http://www.delrus.ec.europa.eu/ru/p_323.htm>, accessed 10 May 2010.

Mark Entin, available at news portal ‘Alleuropa.ru’: <http://www.alleuropa.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1615>, accessed 25 June 2010.

Leonid Karabeshkin, addressing the international conference ‘Borders and trans-border co-operation between Russia and the EU’ at the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences, 24 July 2010.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Nikolay Kaveshnikov, ‘Perspektivy otnoshenii mezhdu Rossiei i YeS’ [Prospects of relations between Russia and the EU], Perspektivy, 13 Feb. 2009.

EU portal, available at <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1891&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en>, accessed 25 June 2010.

For further information on the substance of the EaP see <www.consilium.europa.eu/Docs/cms_Data>, accessed 10 May 2010.

Alexander Strelkov, ‘The EU: Facts and Comments’, The Institute of Europe, RAN, Issue 54 (Dec. 2009), available at <http://www.edc-aes.ru/content/user_files/Image/58.doc>, accessed 25 June 2010.

For more information, see ‘Pereizbranniki naroda’ [The re-elected of the people], Kommersant, 2009, No.99 (4154) (4 June). For more information see ‘The Rian News’ available at <http://www.rian.ru/politics/20090227/163343594.html>, accessed 14 June 2010.

Nadezhda Kulikova, ‘The EU: Facts and Comments’. Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences, Issue 58 (Dec. 2009), available at <http://www.edc-aes.ru/content/user_files/Image/58.doc>, accessed 25 June 2010.

News portal ‘Korrespondent’, available at <http://korrespondent.net/world/808596>, accessed 14 June 2010.

Speech released on 22 May 2009, available at news portal ‘Gazeta.ru’: <http://www.gazeta.ru/eurussia/2009/05/22_a_3175411.shtml>, accessed 14 June 2010.

A multi-stage, stratified, random sample reflects the settlement and demographic structure of the Russian Federation. The total number of respondents was 1,503. The sample included 66 localities, among them 12 regional administrative centres, 12 small and middle-size towns, 6 urban-type settlements and 36 rural settlements. The nation-wide survey was conducted in November 2008; the sample was representative of the population aged 18+ (urban and rural) by nationality, sex, region, age and education. Interviews lasted on average 40–50 minutes using local languages for interlocution. The sample representation error was no more than ±3 per cent. The survey included 10 per cent random quality control on completion. For more information see the project's website <http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/EKPproject/index.htm>, accessed 30 June 2010.

The ENP does not cover Russia, and the EaP envisages only multilateral co-operation with third countries. The relationships between Russia and the EU are developing within the framework of other international agreements.

Fond obshchestvennogo mneniya (Public Opinion Foundation – FOM), Russia and the European Union, 11 Sep. 2008, available at <http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/_west_rel/eurosoc/d083622>, accessed 10 May 2010. This might possibly have been related to the specific political period when the poll was conducted. Their 2006 survey testified to a positive perception of EU–Russia relations (56 per cent). For further information see FOM, ‘Russian and the European Union’, 8 June 2006, available at <http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/_west_rel/eurosoc/dd062225>, accessed 10 May 2010.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sergey Tumanov

Sergey Tumanov is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Sociological Studies at Moscow State University. He has coordinated a large number of international research projects. He is Vice-President of the Russian Guild of Public Opinion Pollsters and Marketers and is the author of five books and 70 articles.

Alexander Gasparishvili

Alexander Gasparishvili is Professor of Sociology and Head of Public Opinion Research Department at Moscow State University. He has coordinated a number of international projects and is the author of four books and 50 articles.

Ekaterina Romanova

Ekaterina Romanova is Associate Professor in the Geography Department at Moscow State University. She is the author of two books and more than 20 scholarly articles.