michael posted on July 15, 2010 15:47
Moscow July 2010
When I entered the European Parliament (EP) in summer 1984 it might as well have been 1954 in terms of the then Soviet Union’s relations with the EP and the then EEC. True, there was an EP Delegation for the Soviet Union but I was told it never convened such was the diplomatic permafrost. The Eastern Bloc’s own “common market”,COMECON, was seen as a hostile rival to the “ever closer union” in Western Europe, but COMECON was not a union of consent. Contrast this ideological prejudice to the pragmatic stance taken by the other great power in the East, China. For China, Western Europe’s rivalry with the Soviet Union provided a welcome counterbalance to offset against Soviet/Chinese mutual suspicions. EU/Chinese relations have always been more productive than EU/Russian because of this Chinese pragmatism.
It was only when the Soviet Union was in obvious decline in the late 1980s, that belated attempts where made on the Soviet side to establish links by recognising the European Union.
Present day Russia has inherited the suspicions of the Cold War and has seen the EU’s eastward expansion (and that of NATO) with concern. Europe remains suspicious of Russia’s export policies in energy and the overall atmosphere has not been helped by the recent exposure of Russian spy rings in the USA.
However, Russia is a European power and attractive and large market. It remains the most practical route into many parts of Central Asia and traders should welcome Russia’s putative customs-union with Kazakhstan as a sign of this potential as well as Russia’s impending entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - a move supported by the EU.
More than that, Russia is a vital part of European culture, enriched by, and enriching the West.
It is people-to-people, business-to-business contact that is needed to break what still remains a logjam at the higher levels of politics.
The EU is the largest supplier of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Russia, and at the conference I attended there was a tangible willingness to engage with the EU by regional government representatives and business forums, particularly SMEs (small and medium enterprises). Modern Russians are bursting to escape from their past isolation.
All the more reasons to press for visa-free travel. The procedures I encountered in London are a grotesque left-over from the Cold War, and are mirrored by the difficulties encountered by Russians heading to Western Europe. The stultifying, petty procedures do nothing to discourage criminals on either side - they do not stand in queues. But they do a lot to discourage the honest and curious.
Isn’t it eventually time that Russia came in from the cold?
Michael Hindley participated in a conference at the State University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow on 8th July, organised by Concordia EU-Russia, a non-for-profit organisation to further Business Cooperation.
Michael Hindley was a MEP from 1984 to 1999 and Vice-President of the External Economic Affairs Committee.