Eastern Partnership - vessel rocking from side to side even before it starts its voyage
One of the European Union's great strengths is its ability, as a prosperous, democratic community of like-minded states, to export political and economic stability to its neighbors. This strength will be put to the test on Thursday when the EU launches its "Eastern Partnership", an initiative to forge closer ties with six ex-Soviet states between the bloc's eastern border and Russia, The Financial Times reports.
The Eastern Partnership, conceived by Poland and Sweden in 2007, covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It is an improvement on the EU's redundant "European Neighborhood Policy", a 2004 project that absurdly grouped eastern European neighbors with places such as Libya, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.
Nonetheless, the Eastern Partnership is a vessel rocking from side to side even before it starts its voyage. It appears unlikely that Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Voronin, presidents of Belarus and Moldova respectively, will bother to show up in Prague for the launch. Nor, it seems, will this week's summit be graced with the presence of all 27 EU national leaders.
Russia, the ghost at the feast, poses another problem. All six ex-Soviet states were under the Kremlin's thumb for most of the 20th century. No sooner had the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 than foreign policy theorists in Moscow dubbed the area Russia's "near abroad".
In the age of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's prime minister and president, the preferred concept is that of a "privileged sphere of influence". In other words, Russia, like a Siberian guard dog, sees the Eastern Partnership as an attempt by some 27-headed terrier to encroach on its patch.
A third issue concerns what is on offer for the six eastern states. On the face of things, it is not money. Under current proposals, the program will raise EU assistance to the region to a meagre 600m ($796m, £534m) from a previously agreed 250m in 2010-13.
However, this criticism is misplaced. Through the International Monetary Fund, the EU is helping to arrange emergency loans for countries such as Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine to survive the global financial crisis and recession. From the recipients' point of view, of course, this may reinforce the perception that the IMF, not the Eastern Partnership, is where the action is.
Far more damaging to the EU's image in the six states are the bloc's travel policies - what Tomas Valasek, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform think-tank, calls "the expensive and gratuitously complicated visa application process". When the European Commission suggested in December that EU governments should aim to remove all visa requirements, protests came from Germany and other western European countries.
As a result, EU leaders dropped the idea in March, replacing it with an almost meaningless offer of simplified visa procedures, on a case-by-case basis and as a long-term goal.
The Germans and others take the view that it is inconceivable to extend visa-free travel to countries such as Ukraine or Moldova as long as they are significant sources of prostitution, drug traffickers and illegal workers and migrants. This attitude offends Belarus, which believes it has a good record on suppressing illegal migration.
One alleged weakness of this partnership is that it makes no promises - even vague promises - that the six states will one day be welcome to join the EU. It is a tempting argument, but there is a risk of over-simplification.
For example, Ukraine sees its future clearly in the EU, but the governments of Azerbaijan or Belarus do not. Each of the six states presents distinctive challenges. The best course for the EU is to draw them all as close as possible by means of free trade and visa-free travel, and - in the sole case of Ukraine - to make an explicit promise of eventual EU membership.
The Eastern Partnership, conceived by Poland and Sweden in 2007, covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It is an improvement on the EU's redundant "European Neighborhood Policy", a 2004 project that absurdly grouped eastern European neighbors with places such as Libya, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.
Nonetheless, the Eastern Partnership is a vessel rocking from side to side even before it starts its voyage. It appears unlikely that Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Voronin, presidents of Belarus and Moldova respectively, will bother to show up in Prague for the launch. Nor, it seems, will this week's summit be graced with the presence of all 27 EU national leaders.
Russia, the ghost at the feast, poses another problem. All six ex-Soviet states were under the Kremlin's thumb for most of the 20th century. No sooner had the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 than foreign policy theorists in Moscow dubbed the area Russia's "near abroad".
In the age of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's prime minister and president, the preferred concept is that of a "privileged sphere of influence". In other words, Russia, like a Siberian guard dog, sees the Eastern Partnership as an attempt by some 27-headed terrier to encroach on its patch.
A third issue concerns what is on offer for the six eastern states. On the face of things, it is not money. Under current proposals, the program will raise EU assistance to the region to a meagre 600m ($796m, £534m) from a previously agreed 250m in 2010-13.
However, this criticism is misplaced. Through the International Monetary Fund, the EU is helping to arrange emergency loans for countries such as Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine to survive the global financial crisis and recession. From the recipients' point of view, of course, this may reinforce the perception that the IMF, not the Eastern Partnership, is where the action is.
Far more damaging to the EU's image in the six states are the bloc's travel policies - what Tomas Valasek, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform think-tank, calls "the expensive and gratuitously complicated visa application process". When the European Commission suggested in December that EU governments should aim to remove all visa requirements, protests came from Germany and other western European countries.
As a result, EU leaders dropped the idea in March, replacing it with an almost meaningless offer of simplified visa procedures, on a case-by-case basis and as a long-term goal.
The Germans and others take the view that it is inconceivable to extend visa-free travel to countries such as Ukraine or Moldova as long as they are significant sources of prostitution, drug traffickers and illegal workers and migrants. This attitude offends Belarus, which believes it has a good record on suppressing illegal migration.
One alleged weakness of this partnership is that it makes no promises - even vague promises - that the six states will one day be welcome to join the EU. It is a tempting argument, but there is a risk of over-simplification.
For example, Ukraine sees its future clearly in the EU, but the governments of Azerbaijan or Belarus do not. Each of the six states presents distinctive challenges. The best course for the EU is to draw them all as close as possible by means of free trade and visa-free travel, and - in the sole case of Ukraine - to make an explicit promise of eventual EU membership.
