JOHN MARONE, KYIV
THE YEAR OF LIVING CAREFULLY
There is an eerie feeling in Eastern Europe. The color revolutions have faded like a well worn tie-dyed t-shirt that once looked bright but always lacked a clear design. The revolutionary dream of former Soviet satellite states to join Western Europe was always vague if for no other reason than Western Europe’s own lack of identity and purpose. Now, the dreamers are awakening to a new, uncertain and ominously familiar day.
The global financial crisis cannot be blamed for the descending malaise, although economic prosperity was definitely a large part of the dream. Instead, the failures of banks and currencies have merely served to highlight a more serious bankruptcy – that of a unifying European idea.
The creation of the EU has been top-down and largely in response to American economic might and Asian economic potential. A mosaic of bureaucracies with little vision, much less a diplomacy or military to stand up for itself, the EU has been shaken by nothing more than a predictable economic downturn.
Countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have been left on the doorstep of the tottering structure, as unwelcome as they are uncertain about going in.
The recent Prague Summit between the EU and its so-called eastern partners was the latest in a recent string of disappointing signs of European disunity. The divide between east and west was as evident as the division between individual EU member states.
The declaration of eastern partnership that came out of the summit set a new benchmark in waffling.
It’s as if the EU had invited more guests than it could feed to a dinner and now is afraid to tell them to go home.
The former Soviet satellites of the Black Seas region were, of course, never formally invited. Instead, they have been courted and teased while being taught to mind their manners.
The situation is made more awkward by the EU’s already significant advances in the other direction. Several major European banks couldn’t wait to set up shop in Ukraine, handing out credit on every street corner while overheating the fledgling economy.
Now these same banks, the missionaries of capitalism, are beating a retreat. Some will stay and wait for better times, but only after getting a fresh injection of capital from very non-capitalist public lenders.
The divide between the recipients and non-recipients of EU aid is another one of those signals not lost on Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge of external relations, Hryhory Nemyria.
International lenders such as the IMF have pledged billions of dollars to help Kyiv and other hard-hit countries weather the current financial crisis, but the EU appears to be looking after its own.
“Why is the EU so reluctant?” Nemyria asked during a recent EBRD conference, echoing the frustration inevitably felt by other Europhile Ukrainian statesmen.
Europeans may see a chance to get off the hook by pointing to recent signs that the global economic crisis might not be as bad as first expected.
Thomas Mirow, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, expressed such optimism.
However, any future efforts by the EU to reach out to Ukraine as well as Moldova and Georgia are likely to be a little too little and a little too late.
There is the issue of visas, which Europeans going to Ukraine don’t need but Ukrainians going to EU countries do, and other such snubs that may very well be justified.
But perhaps the greatest obstacle to ‘full European unity’ is more about geopolitics than economics.
European heavyweights such as France and Germany have time and again shown themselves reluctant to risk damaging their relations with Russia on account of its former satellites.
They have opposed NATO membership for Ukraine and undermined their own energy security for fear of angering Moscow. Russia showed itself willing to use force during its brief war with Georgia and continues to saber rattle in the Caucuses.
Matters in Moldova have been handled more subtly, with the country’s briefly Western-looking Communist president now boldly aping the Kremlin’s methods for quelling pesky street protesters.
The unrecognized Dniester Region could easily, however, provide a pretext for Moscow’s military expansion into that corner of the former Soviet Union.
Then there is Crimea – a larger kettle of fish to be sure, but certainly not off bounds to Moscow leaders who might feel they have nothing to lose from military adventurism.
Certainly the European Union would hardly prevent such a scenario. One can just imagine the French and Germans quibbling over how to word a statement of rebuke, while the Poles and Lithuanians pull their hair out, and the Hungarians and Italians cut another lucrative gas deal with Gazprom.
In fairness to the Europeans, the United States under President ‘Reset-the-Button’ Obama may also prove reluctant to check Russian aggression in Moscow’s backyard.
The US is war-weary and tapped on cash from its adventures in Iraq. Moreover, it’s questionable whether even the more bellicose Mr. Bush would have risked military intervention over a country like Ukraine or Georgia.
No few European leaders may very soon look back on the Bush years with nostalgia, for this was a time when Brussels could let Washington do all the dirty work, while criticizing America from its ivory tower.
With Obama, an untested and highly inexperienced leader, it’s anyone’s guess. The same can be said of the Kremlin, which seems to be in a battle with itself, weakened by corruption, vulnerable to world energy prices and irritated by its stroppy neighbors.
Ironically, the European Union may be the most predictable power in the region, as it is sure to do nothing that requires political will.
In such a situation, a year of living carefully for Western powers, countries like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova must have an eerie feeling about their future. Instability or repression from within and anger or indifference from abroad are already here and now. What lies ahead is likely more of the same and possibly worse.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
May 19, 2009
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