Transatlantic Politics

So Biden has made quite an impact with his "hit the reset button" with Russia remark at the Munich security conference over the week-end. But this comes as bad news for Eastern European countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania - hailed as "special partners" by the previous Bush administration. Not to mention Georgia and Ukraine.

On the planned missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, Biden said the US would "continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost effective."

"We will do so in consultation with our NATO allies and Russia."

Well, since Russia has consistantly opposed this project and with Germany and France not very keen on the project either, chances are pretty slim that the shield is ever going to be installed, despite serious political damages to the Eastern European governments involved, after they put their credibility at stake with the Bush-backed plan.

Here’s some background from the Wall Street Journal:

In advance of Mr. Biden’s speech, White House aides had said the vice president would announce that the U.S. was prepared to reconsider plans for a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe. Moscow has long opposed such plans. Mr. Biden’s actual remarks appeared vaguer. A senior administration official traveling with Mr. Biden said the administration toned down the language because of unease in Washington that Moscow was behind last week’s proposed eviction of the U.S. from an air base in Kyrgyzstan used to support the military in Afghanistan.

So the Obama administration would have no problem in scrapping the missile defense shield and it is probably a matter of months until they will do so, the moment Moscow signals some opening.

Already the Russian envoys reacted warmly to Biden’s statements.

"The U.S. sent a very strong signal, and the signal was heard," Russian foreign minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters. "It’s obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change, and we’re ready to cooperate with this administration on all levels."

Sad day for Eastern Europe. A new entente between big European countries - France, Germany, UK - Russia and the US could only come at the expense of Eastern Europe, still seen by Moscow as its own backyard.

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"A dream president", "what a great victory for democracy", "the hope we needed" - were some of the lines you could hear on the night of Nov. 4th in Brussels, where over 2000 expats and internationals partied in a posh hotel as the results from overseas were coming in.

Great expectations, and false ones, as some might argue, meaning that the disappointment is set to hit Europe accordingly.

Just a recent example of this utopian approach: A talk show  on the Belgian national tv earlier today was entitled "Will president Obama change the world?" On the show were US ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker (speaking in great French, by the way) and Belgian politicians.

From the debate it became pretty clear that the moment president Obama will "pick up the phone and call up" European leaders to ask them to commit more troops to Afghanistan, the EU-Obama honey moon will end.

In Belgium "the army must first and foremost seek peace", as one Socialist lady senator put it. Quite some ally there for the US…

"Diplomacy first", meaning "talking to the Talibans" was the idea advocated by former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel, currently an EU commissioner for development and humanitarian. Yet Mr Michel would back a decision of sending more troops to Afghanistan if the decision was taken within NATO after a "real dialogue" of the Europeans with the US, he said, acclaiming that the "leadership" of the US in world affairs was over and "multilateralism" was dawning again.

Interesting were also the remarks on EU-Russia and US-Russia relations. The announcement of Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he would deploy short-range missiles in Kaliningrad - a Russian enclave on the shores of the Baltic Sea squeezed between Poland and Lithuania - was presented by the host of the talk show as just an "odd way to congratulate the new US president on November 5th".

Mr Michel stressed that for the EU it’s "a matter of priority" to resume talks with Russia - suspended after the Georgian war - since this was the "bigger and very important neighbor" of Europe. As to the fears of the Baltic states and Poland - these were only "fuelled" by the outgoing Bush administration and Barack Obama would certainly adopt a more "flexible" attitude towards Russia, he argued.

The Green senator went even further, claiming that the Bush administration had played Eastern and Western Europe against each-other (not Russia!!!) and that all this would soon be over once president Obama takes over.

The Belgian politicians seemed also already disappointed with Mr Obama’s nuanced stance on Iran lately and still hoped he would sit down and talk to the mullahs and Ahmadinejad, as diplomacy was, in their view, the only solution to stop Tehran from aquiring nuclear bombs. And here, again, Mr Michel said the EU should "speak on one voice" and show more initiative.

The hypocrisy of EU "initiative" and "soft power" as opposed to the alleged blunt "hard power of the US" can be seen in Georgia: Russia has basically taken over for good the two breakaway provinces - although the war was only about one of them - has massed up thousands of troops on these territories and meanwhile everybody in Western Europe is happy to go back to business as usual with the Kremlin. Lithuania’s opposition to this move is expected to be silenced tomorrow at a meeting of the EU foreign affairs meeting, ahead of an EU-Russia summit this Thursday.

Rembember that op-ed in the WSJ entitled  "Stop! or we’ll say stop again!"? This is how the EU acts towards Russia. And this is how it acts towards Iran as well.

Luckily, president Obama will not take onboard his team day-dreaming, tree-hugging European politicians. And he should not fear to disappoint them.

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Russia has stopped its military invasion. Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov called earlier for president Saakashvili to step down. French president Nicolas Sarkozy declared, after his meeting with Medvedev, that he finds it "justifiable" for Russia to defend the rights of Russian citizens abroad.

Now president Medvedev says Georgia should be "demilitarized". And these are just the conditions made public.

MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a full settlement of the military conflict with Georgia was subject to two conditions, includingGeorgia moving its troops to pre-conflict positions.
"We can discuss the question of a definitive settlement if two conditions are met," Medvedev said before meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"First, Georgian troops should return to their initialposition and be partly demilitarised. Second, we need to sign abinding agreement on non-use of force."

But other consequences we can think of are obviously a brutal regime change, an end to Georgia’s NATO aspirations and  Europe being cut off from the Caspian oil and gas reserves. Also, a much stronger Russia when dealing with European countries. Already Italy, Belgium and now France are caving in to Russia, condemning the "anti-Russian" stance in Europe.

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Bucharest, Romania:  The final fronteer.

It was the first NATO summit where the US failed to get what it publicly asked for - granting Ukraine and Georgia a next step in the NATO-accession process, the so-called "Membership Action Plan" or MAP.  MAP does not mean automatic NATO membership and can take 5-10 years to complete because the requirements laid out in MAP are dependent on the reformist drive of the respective governments. In the battle over whether to grant MAP to Ukraine & Georgia, French President Sarkozy, whom Bush qualified as "the last reincarnation of Elvis", suddenly switched sides and joined the opposition led by German chancellor Angela Merkel, who was against MAP from the very beginning.

After bitter quarrels at a working dinner hosted by the Romanian president Traian Basescu, the leaders of Old Europe prevailed. Bush and Brown got a measly compromise - a second chance in December, when NATO foreign ministers could decide to give MAP to the two former Soviet countries. But German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier already qualified as "unconceivable" the prospects of changing his mind by December, when, in his view, there will only be a "first assessment". Followed by a second, third, etc. until Ukrainians and Georgians give up hope of ever joining NATO.

The real winner of the NATO summit in Bucharest was none other than Vladimir Putin. It was he who delivered the final speech on the last day of the summit, it was he whom Germany and France were thinking of as these two stalwarts of "Old Europe" fought to keep Georgia and Ukraine out of NATO. Self-confident and pleased that "our concerns were heard", Putin gave the audience at the Summit a condescending discourse which seemed as if the West was already at his disposal and he, the "Tsar of the Kremlin" didn’t feel the need to bully his loyal servants.  If the result of the NATO Summit are any indication, Putin was right.

During the closed-door NATO-Russia Council in Bucharest, Putin threatened the statehood of Ukraine in the event that it would become a NATO member.  Putin noted that "there are 17 millions Russians there" and that "Ukraine is a patchwork of territories from other states". But in the following press conference he refrained himself form directly attacking Ukraine or Georgia. The argument against NATO enlargement, in Putin’s public speech, was that "NATO is not a democratizer", but "a powerful military block whose appearance on our borders will be considered by Russia as a direct threat to our country’s security.

He also stressed that no threat - from terrorism to proliferation of WMD, from cyber attacks to energy - can be tackled without Russia. NATO was set up during the Cold War against an "evil empire" - the USSR - "but it remains to be seen who was right then", Putin said. That statement alone should set off alarm bells among military strategists and historians throughout the West. 

Putin also mentioned Iran and that, although Russia opposes a military nuclear program, it is "fully committed to honor its contractual obligations in terms of civilian technology and fuel for the civilian Iranian nuclear program".  No comment.

So what will be the future of NATO after Bucharest, after Russia got a veto right through its advocates in the NATO Alliance, especially Germany?

Hopefully Russia will make another mistake, the way it cut off gas to Ukraine in 2006 and let German consumers shiver. And hopefully we’ll have a strong leader in the White House next year. One who knows Russia from the Cold War and sees the new threat it has become. One who doesn’t look Putin or Medvedev in the eyes and thinks he has "seen into their soul", as George W. Bush famously stated after meeting with Putin. That would be the only hope for the transatlantic community. It cannot rely on a reincarnation of Elvis in France and a jello-like chancellor in Germany, too weak to break the will of her half-socialist, pro-Russian government. 

It is a sad indication of where the power truly lies in Europe when Bush and Sarkozy, both hawkish on foreign policy in general, are not able to secure the nomination of two former Soviet satellites to one of the most important military blocs in the world.  Perhaps, in the end, Putin smiles because he knows the truth:  Putin has also looked into the West’s eyes to see its soul and has found that the West is lacking both a soul and a backbone. 

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There is a spectrum haunting Europe: the EU Constitution. Despite all appearances, it's not quite dead. Au contraire. After two identity changes, some face lifts and a heavy dose of make-up, the "undead" Constitution  was first re-baptised as the "Reform Treaty" and now lives on as the "Lisbon Treaty". The final deal was struck on Friday in Lisbon, Portugal, where all the EU member states agreed that the new Treaty would be ratified by parliamentary procedures. No more referendums (except for Ireland and possibly the UK if Gordon Brown caves in to the Tories).  The EU learned its lesson the first time after France & the Netherlands rejected the Constitution.  Democracy is a bitch and it is better to keep the role of deciding the new shape of the European Union out of the hands of the voters. 

Why the dull name "Lisbon Treaty" instead of "EU Constitution" or even the "Reform Treaty"? First, the name will simply join the list of the other confusing names of EU institutions and projects: The "European Council", which is the main decision maker in the EU and features a gathering of the heads of all member states.  This is not to be mixed up with the "Council of Europe", which is a UN-like, human rights watchdog that includes "democratic", non-EU countries, such as Russia.  Confusing?  All the better!  The populace of the EU isn't supposed to be able to tell the difference between the myriad of EU institutions!

The EU knows better than most that a lack of understanding leads to a lack of accountability. This is part of the reason why the EU Constitution has been renamed the "Lisbon Treaty", a name that is easily confusable with the unrelated "Lisbon Agenda".  What is the "Lisbon Agenda" you ask?  Well, it is another "bold" project of the EU adopted in 2000 and aimed to "make Europe, by 2010, the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world".  Funny - perhaps.  Ambiguous - absolutely. Confusing - most definitely.

In fact, the name "Lisbon Treaty" is designed to suggest that the new document is part of a series of Treaties all signed in nice touristy locations that have come to define the competences of the EU institutions: the "Rome Treaty", the "Maastricht Treaty", the "Amsterdam Treaty" and the "Nice Treaty". In no way is it designed to remind the populace of the failed EU Constitution (even though that is what it is). 

In order to achieve the EU Constitution's goals without the Constitution's language, the document itself has been made almost unreadable.  Here is an excerpt of the  "Lisbon Treaty", to be enacted on January 1st 2009: 

4) Article 2, renumbered 3, shall be replaced by the following: Article 3

1. The Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.

But what are its values?  Well, in order to understand that, you would have to refer to at least three other tomes of previous drafts and treaties to go with (including the EU Constitution).  In fact, each term has been so longly debated and negotiated that some sentences don't make a lot of sense anymore.. 

The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment.

I'm not an economist, but who would prefer "balanced" economic growth to "economic growth", "highly competitive social market economy" to "highly competitive market economy", who would aim for "full employment", "social progress" and a "high level of protection"? Bingo! The French.

It's not a joke, it's a reality. All this gibberish is Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy's work of art. Oh la la, quelle economie, quel protectionisme! But since Germany isn't too keen on free market economics either and while Gordon Brown was busy bargaining Great Britain's opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights (which is to become legally binding in all EU member states except UK and Poland) nobody really fought against Sarko..

On the Eastern front, a humble going-along attitude was prevailing, with two notable exceptions: Poland and Bulgaria. The Poles fought and finally got their veto mechanism called the "Ioannina Clause", while the EU freshman Bulgaria, a member only since January 1st, 2007, obtained the right to use the spelling "evro" instead of "euro".

But overall, the "Lisbon Treaty" enforces many of the ideas set out in the EU Constitution, even if under less sensitive terms. There will be a President of the EU, elected for 2 1/2 years by the European Council, there will be a Foreign Minister of the EU, called "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy". The EU gets more powers especially in the field of justice, home affairs, counter terrorism and foreign affairs. The EU Parliament becomes equally powerful with the European Council, it will have co-decision powers in virtually all areas. Biggest loser of the Treaty: the EU Commission, the technical, "executive" branch of the EU which has the power of legislative initiative. So far, every member state was represented in the Commission. But the "Lisbon Treaty" provides the number of EU commissioners to reflect only two thirds of the member states, invoking the "efficiency" criteria. Nevertheless, the number of Commission bureaucrats stays the same. Also the number of directorates and units. The ones who lose the most are the small countries, especially the new members from the former Communist block. One EU official I talked to told me following:

The Commission works in most areas with ridiculously thin resources. So whatever the initiative, you can usually trace it down to one or two desk officers who are doing the real work. These people, with no ill will, just as a resource constraint consequence, may very well work and prepare a proposal without full awareness of the implications that that proposal will have in every member state. I think the fact that around the College table and in the final stage of preparation, at the cabinet level, there is somebody who is looking from a national perspective, is healthy for the system. This is the only way  the Commission as an institution can take its decisions fully aware of the impact they will have everywhere in the Union.

I think it’s a big shame especially for the small member states. The four big ones can be comfortable. They know that the machinery is such that it will always act taking into account their concerns and preoccupations, even if they’re out for some years. But the small member states made a fundamental mistake in accepting it.

Ultimately, one might argue that it doesn't really matter what this Treaty is all about, since in 6 or 7 years there will probably be another one, just as incomprehensible and contradictory. Somewhere between The United States of Europe and a community of free nations, somewhere between a super-state with super-bureaucracy and the advantages of the common market, at some point some member states might consider an exit from the EU. And let the French be the last to shut the lights off. 

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