© Agencja Gazeta/Slawomir KaminskI via REUTERS

For years, the mantra of Polish transformation was Europeanization. The idea that Poland should emulate the Western European model in politics, economic policy, and values has informed the country’s domestic policy and determined the horizon of its foreign policy aspirations. Law and Justice (PiS), the national populist party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski that has governed since November 2015, represents a departure from this philosophy. The party’s illiberal tendencies are evident. It has changed the constitutional tribunal, introduced judicial reforms ceding power to the executive branch, and centralized public funding for NGOs (which will direct funds to PiS-friendly organizations). This all represents more than a grab for power by a new elite: These steps are a conscious rejection of Europeanization, stemming from widespread criticism of the Western European model and the EU.

To be clear, this “de-Europeanization” does not go hand in hand with opposition to EU membership. Indeed, the latest polls show that 88 percent of Poles support EU membership, and only 5 percent want a “Polexit.” Not even the euroskeptic PiS party questions Poland’s EU membership. Rather, PiS desires emancipation from the influence of Western European partners and wants a greater sense of sovereignty.

The backlash against Europeanization is most apparent on the cultural front. PiS’s party leaders and chief ideologists have disparaged Poland’s westward outlook as a policy of imitation, one that involves submission to Western or German thought. Some have even claimed that Western liberal ideals are not compatible with Polish traditions and identity. In the view of PiS’s leading politicians and intellectuals, the EU is a project that abandoned its Christian conservative and economic roots long ago; for them, it was commandeered by a generation of left-wingers empowered by the protests of May 1968, and has turned into an ideologically driven instrument designed to socially and culturally homogenize Europe. PiS’s rhetoric often falls back upon the theme of left-wing social engineering, which it claims has pushed Western societies toward secularization, ecology, and glorification of minorities, cosmopolitanism, and multiculturalism.

The refugee crisis has fueled this anti-Western propaganda in a massive way. PiS, and those who support its manifesto, often believe that Poland represents the “real West,” whereas Western Europe has betrayed Western values. Since this transformation of European societies has been consciously driven, PiS believes it can be consciously rolled back, too. It should come as no surprise that de-Europeanization has resulted in a redefinition of the country’s relationship with Germany, previously its number one partner and the “gate to Europe,” as it was framed in Polish discourse during the 1990s.

Brexit Error

Poland was once seen as part of the union’s core bloc, and Polish policymakers believed that membership in this core – even with certain compromises – would be the best long-term investment for the country’s security and stability. The PiS government has rejected this course, calling it a “policy on the knees” and claiming that the desire to be part of the EU mainstream has not benefited Poland. The earlier Kaczynski government (2005-07) placed much emphasis on the “battle for memory” which is the Polish term for the fight against alleged German historical revisionism. In the current government, other grievances have featured more prominently. The refugee issue has become the key driver of Warsaw’s criticism of Berlin.

Warsaw’s shift to the United Kingdom as its key partner in Europe in the beginning of 2016 was not just steered by anti-German prejudices, however. This shift of alliances also reflected the PiS government’s ambition to push the integration process in a different direction. When the party came into power in the fall of 2015, the concept of strengthening the nation state and re-nationalizing the economy, along with opposition to deeper EU integration and criticism of liberal democracy, were on the rise across Europe. The populist revolt against the establishment seemed to validate PiS’s claim that popular sentiment across the EU was on its – and Britain’s – side.

But the UK’s decision to leave the EU, Emmanuel Macron’s success in France, and the stability of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship (despite the electoral gains of the Alternative for Germany) proved this calculus wrong. Without the UK, the position of all non-euro countries (including Poland) will be much weaker. And the future shape of the EU will most probably be determined not by Poland or Hungary’s visions, but rather the renewed Franco-German axis.
Warsaw’s miscalculation led to a severe deterioration in Poland’s relations with the European Commission, Germany, and France, and it might prove costly.

Picking Fights

The Polish dilemma is not new; it has to do with the peculiarities of Poland’s position within the EU. Poland is in many respects a special (and sometimes awkward) partner, due to its size, ambitions, and specific national interests. It is a large country that has lofty political aspirations but relatively few resources with which to pursue them. That means Poland occupies an uneasy space between European superpowers and smaller states – between the policy-makers and the policy-takers, in other words.

Poland is also a country with very specific interests that are not widely shared within Europe. Not even the other Eastern European countries agree with, say, how Poland perceives the security threat posed by Russia, or sympathize with its energy policy, which is shaped by its particularly large coal industry. Poland is not a big player in the defense industry, but it still has meaningful interests at stake. It is ethnically homogeneous and wants to remain that way, but large enough to be expected to take more responsibility for the refugee problem.

To achieve its goals, Poland needs to navigate carefully in Europe, be willing to compromise, and yet be tough when its most vital interests are at stake. It needs to demonstrate diplomacy and tact rather than irk its neighbors. Otherwise, Poland will inevitably end up on a collision course with other partners and institutions.

Yet it is already picking fights. In August 2017 the Polish government took the unprecedented step of ignoring a decision by the European Court of Justice that required Warsaw to temporarily stop logging in the Białowieża forest, which is under environmental protection until a final ruling can be issued. Poland also refused to fulfill its obligation to take in its quota of refugees in accordance with the EU’s refugee relocation mechanism. Then there is the European Commission’s infringement procedure to sanction Poland over its plans to exert more power over the judiciary. Together, these three cases have become highly politicized and have damaged Poland’s relations with the EU.

Strategic Challenge

The risks that Poland is facing with its course towards de-Europeanization go beyond sector-specific issues. The way Poland’s interests are defined today may prevent the country from joining the integration and cooperation frameworks that will shape the EU in the future. Eurozone accession, for example, is a non-issue for the current government, and the opposition has an ambiguous attitude to that question.

Meanwhile, the country’s ambition to build a strong national defense industry, and its belief that stronger European defense cooperation runs counter to the interests of NATO, make Warsaw suspicious about plans for a defense union. The government is unwilling to consider steps that would unify European migration or social policy, or ambitious targets in climate policy. Polish national interests in those areas may explain some of its reservations, but the national populist camp’s distrust of further Europeanization plays just as large a role.

Whatever weighs heavier, a de-Europeanization – even a relative one, should the rest of the European Union integrate further while Poland looks on from the sidelines – is likely. Brexit weakens its position even further. Thus, Poland’s strategic challenge today is to find compromises that will allow it to benefit from the EU integration process, or – in some areas – at least not bear negative consequences of policies undertaken at the EU level.

A Vicious Circle

This dilemma is reflected in the Polish approach to differentiated integration. Initially, the reaction in Poland was quite positive. In fact, Warsaw maintained that the EU could not function according to a one-size-fits-all model: the EU needed instead to allow member states to integrate as much as they wanted, while allowing those who did not want to integrate further the chance to preserve the full benefits of integration. Therefore, the Polish idea of flexible opt-out mechanisms resembles a “Europe à la carte” in which each country can pick and choose cooperation formats that best suit their interests.

For most other EU countries, this has never been a viable option; for them, flexible integration is an instrument to achieve more integration, not less. Poland’s reaction to that is negative, with foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski commenting that putting flexible integration on the table was “a recipe for failure, division, and separation,” and that such proposals may give rise to “hegemonic” solutions that would leave behind any countries that do not fully integrate.

Polexit is not to be expected, neither today nor tomorrow. It is rather the EU which is likely to “leave” Poland – not by formally excluding it, but through further steps towards integration and cooperation that will hollow out Poland’s membership in the bloc. If Warsaw continues to de-Europeanize, it could enter a vicious circle: because of its relative disengagement, it would benefit less from the EU than in the past. The populists could then instrumentalize this relative loss of power and benefit to oppose the EU and its largest member states even more.

The post Cutting Off Its Nose to Spite Its Face appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

They inhabit the top tiers of state media. They work in editorial offices supported by state-owned firms. And they have direct access to the powerful chairman of the Polish ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Yet in a remarkable and continuing instance of doublethink, they also portray themselves as a minority, persecuted by the mainstream and the establishment for their inconvenient truths. They call themselves niepokorni (the unbowed) – and their story says more about the agitated public debate and political atmosphere in Poland than most political analyses.

The term niepokorni has a long and honorable history. It echoes through a country where resistance to those in power plays a particularly strong role in political identity. It originates from a book published in the early 1970s – The Genealogy of the Unbowed – that inspired a whole generation of democratic opposition. It told the biographies of Polish intellectuals and politicians of the 19th and 20th centuries, people who had followed their ideals and goals without compromise, despite the resistance of the powerful and a zeitgeist that was heading in a different direction.

The new niepokorni took to the stage at the end of 2012. Following a conflict with a new publisher, a group of prominent conservative commentators from the second biggest Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita walked out and started a new paper. Its first front-page headline read, “The Unbowed Are Back.”

They left amid one of the biggest media scandals in Polish history. In 2012 Rzeczpospolita published a story with the headline, “Explosives Found in the Wreck.” The author claimed that traces of explosives had been uncovered among the remains of the government plane that had crashed near Smolensk the previous year, killing 96 passengers including President Lech Kaczynski. The theory that Poland’s president had been assassinated was already cooking within the country’s right-wing circles. Now it seemed to gain traction. Yet the story itself had none. The journalist failed to produce evidence to support the claim, which the general prosecutor would later dismiss.

The publisher fired those journalists who clung, unimpressed, to the assassination theory. They later accused him of cozying up to the governing party Civic Platform, itself an archenemy of the right. It all fit perfectly into a new legend of the unbowed.

The new paper they founded was part a resurgent right-wing, conservative branch of the Polish media. Until then it had been a fairly unproductive branch, and that fact itself was incorporated into the new legend. The unbowed saw themselves as having been excluded by the dominant, left-leaning liberal media (particularly Gazeta Wyborcza) for years, if not decades. They felt humiliated and sidelined. Yet in fact, most of the media projects started by those on the right during the 1990s had simply failed, leaving the dominance of Gazeta Wyborcza unchallenged.

This boiled down to the niepokorni defining themselves as “anti-salon,” even adopting the phrase for the name of a TV show hosted by one of their most prominent members. They saw themselves as an uncompromising counterweight to the “liberal elite,” to what they portrayed as the “industry of disrespect” (to nationalist or conservative opinions), and to the “madness of political correctness.”

The “salon” they oppose is an indispensable element of the unbowed identity. They see it as an illegitimate moral authority of the Third Republic, which they say is built on the left-liberal legacy of the Solidarnosc movement and undermined by former communists. Not belonging to the salon – or even better, being excluded from it – is a source of continuing frustration. And even a complete upheaval of the political climate and the media landscape has not been enough to quench the thirst for right-wing insurrection.

Yet that is what has already taken place. The political agenda-setting power of Gazeta Wyborcza waned at least a decade ago, and the unbowed have long inhabited prominent positions in state media (the author of the “plane plot” article is now Berlin correspondent for Polish public TV station TVP). They successfully capitalized on the emotions stirred by the Smolensk tragedy to cement their place at the top. Their media networks now include the best-selling weekly paper Do Rzeczy, Gazeta Polska, Nasz Dziennik, and wSieci, as well as the internet portals polityce.pl and niezalezna.pl, the TV broadcaster Republica and also TV Trwam, which is linked to the infamous radio station Radio Maryja.

They have succeeded in turning this into political influence; no one disputes the idea that their support for Jaroslav Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) was of central importance to its electoral success in 2015. Since then they have completely “reconquered” public – now national – media, and enjoy a hefty income from state-owned companies. The unbowed have written a media success story the likes of which is difficult to find anywhere else. And with that, they have significantly influenced a narrative of Polish modern history that many are happy to ascribe to: a country corrupted and driven into the ground by liberals and now led by the right to recovery, success, sovereignty, and, most importantly, national dignity.

The Unbowed are today at the height of their influence – as is their hero Kaczynski. And this despite the fundamental contradiction at the heart of their legend: they portray themselves as and even believe themselves to be the informal leaders of the country, while at the same time suffering repression and defending themselves against the hated salon. The original niepokorni must be turning in their graves.

The post Words Don’t Come Easy: “Niepokorni” appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

While “Breversal” – a reversal of Britain’s June 23 referendum – is not impossible, the likeliest outcome is that the United Kingdom will exit the EU one way or other. What does this mean for Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw?

© Artwork: Katinka Reinke

The Servant Leader

A European Union without Britain demands a new kind of balancing act from Germany.

The United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union has catapulted Germany to the next stage of its post-World War II existence: that of the neo-Bismarckian balancer. With the departure of Britain, the traditional outside balancer of continental affairs, much of the balancing within the EU will be left to the big country in the middle: balancing between northern and southern mentalities in economics; balancing between free traders and protectionists; balancing between East and West; and balancing between those who are tough on security and those who don’t feel threatened.

Germany is roughly in the middle on all of these issues, but balancing means more than just finding reasonable middle ground. It means building alliances and accommodating those whose worldview does not prevail in the compromises of the day. The balancing act Berlin will have to perform without the help of the open-market, free-trade, militarily robust, naturally globalist Anglo-Saxons will be a daunting task. It will be more than the country has had to face since it became fully sovereign in 1990 – or since the beginning of the European integration process, for that matter. What does this mean in concrete terms?

Over the next five to ten years, the EU will need at least three decisive reforms. First, and most crucially, it needs to create some sort of fiscal (read: political) union in the eurozone if the common currency is to survive. Secondly, as this will almost inevitably lead to two-speed (read: two-class) Europe, a politically acceptable and practically workable arrangement for an EU divided into euro countries and non-euro countries needs to be found. Thirdly, the EU, or at least the refurbished eurozone, will need to democratize so that citizens feel that they have a say in decision-making at the most integrated level. All of these are long-term reforms, but clear signals need to be sent soon. In addition, an urgent short-term issue looms large on the horizon: finding a workable compromise on refugees that includes improved EU border controls, a shared asylum system among Schengen countries, a system that allows unwilling countries to buy themselves out of their quota, and beefed-up relations with the countries of origin.

Unfortunately, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been wavering on the eurozone. Shortly before the British referendum she said it was “unavoidable” that the eurozone would develop into some sort of political union. Shortly after the Brexit vote she announced that it was not the right time to deepen the eurozone. While this is not exactly contradictory, it is confused messaging – the opposite of the finely tuned EU diplomacy that will now be in demand.

Just as important as action on the euro will be an urgently needed shift in German mentality. Germany will need to become the EU’s “servant leader”, creating acceptance for its outsize influence by visibly defending the common good of the EU, sacrificing some of its own immediate diplomatic gains if necessary. Germany needs to become Europe’s integrationist reserve power again, willing to compromise just a little earlier and pay just a little more than everyone else so that the whole thing can thrive.

Since the late Kohl era, and increasingly so under Chancellors Gerhard Schröder and Merkel herself, Germany had abandoned this position. This needs to be reversed. Naturally, there is no way back to the good old days. Being Europe’s reserve power today means something different from thirty years ago; it is far more demanding. But being the servant leader of Europe is a natural outflow of Germany’s size, geography, history – and own national interest. Bismarck would have understood.
– BY JAN TECHAU

Putting Down a Marker

France will push Britain for a quick exit, hoping to regain greater parity with Germany.

French President François Hollande’s reaction to the news that the British had opted for Brexit was swift: Immediately after the official result was known, Hollande declared that now was the time to act – and act fast. The view from Paris is clear: A quick departure from the European Union is meant to create a warning – pour encourager les autres, as they say in England.

This message is addressed not only to EU member states eyeing an exit themselves or those mulling the idea of threating to leave in order to secure preferential treatment. It is also – and in particular – aimed at Hollande’s domestic audience: there will be presidential elections in France in less than ten months. The election campaign will start right after the summer break, and the Socialist, who is likely to run for a second term, knows how dangerous “Europe” can become as a topic. His Socialist Party (PS) is deeply divided on the issue, still reeling from the trauma of the lost referendum of 2005. In the run-up to that vote, the French political parties tore into each other and themselves; the PS has since been unable to agree on a European line. Hollande will do everything to keep this Pandora’s box tightly shut this time.

One way or another, however, European policy will pop up in the election campaign – directly and through issues like the economy, security, counter-terrorism, identity, and migration. And Brexit will hang over all the debates. Politicians from the right are already demanding a referendum on the future of the EU, among them former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to rebuild the European project and hold a EU-wide referendum to validate this.

Then there are radical parties of the left and right which denounce the “German Europe” of today and demand and “end to austerity.” The leader of the Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, is wellplaced to enter the final round of elections and has been dreaming of a referendum along the lines of the UK vote. According to several polls, about a third of the French – and three quarters of FN voters – agree with her. Those numbers are too low to lead to “Frexit”, but they are also too high to be ignored. This will likely mean that criticism of the EU will grow, even among politicians in “mainstream” parties.

To win over some of the malcontents, Hollande is trying to use Brexit to put the EU on a different course. His promise of “a different Europe,” on which he campaigned in 2012, was left unrealized. Now he senses another chance – and he is already demanding closer cooperation in security and defense policy, and, as in 2012, increased investment to promote growth and job creation, along with a harmonization of Europe’s fiscal policy regime. This is not least to strengthen France’s role in Europe – and regain greater parity in the German-French tandem power relationship. And Berlin might not mind: Brexit has weakened the traditional “motor” of European integration, removing London as an impetus for greater German-French cooperation. With London out, it is hard to see how the Franco-German axis could facilitate a change of course for the EU without at least some realignment given the differences in their interests and priorities. – BY CLAIRE DEMESMAY

Loss of an Ally

Poland sees its position strengthened in that the European Union needs “adaptation”.

With the United Kingdom gone, Poland and its Law and Justice (PiS) government will lose its favorite ally within the EU. After all, the UK is a country that shares the PiS’ opposition toward further integration, wants to defend its national sovereignty, and rejects the EU common currency.

When the UK leaves, Poland will become the largest country of the non-euro bloc in the EU – though the entire bloc combined will make up just 14 percent of the EU’s economic output, something that will further weaken Warsaw’s bargaining position when it comes to relations between eurozone outs and ins.

But as far as Warsaw is concerned, the most immediate issue to be addressed in the upcoming exit negotiations with the UK will be the status of around 700,000 Polish citizens living and working in the UK. According to current regulations, around half of them would lose their right to stay in the UK once Brexit becomes a reality. Large numbers of Polish migrants returning to Poland would aggravate the domestic labor market and become a source of social and political tension. When the referendum results were announced, Polish officials maintained that securing the rights of these Polish citizens would be the Polish governmentʼs most important goal.

Given the political capital and emotion that have been invested into the Polish-British relationship in recent months, Poland will belong to the group of countries striving for a compromise-oriented approach to the exit negotiations as it seeks to “restore an as-close-as-possible relationship” with the UK, as the government put it. It remains unclear whether this indicates an openness towards a “special deal” with the UK (outside of the obvious options of EEA or WTO membership, or an European Free Trade Association), but Warsaw would be unlikely to make the UK’s Brexit wounds any more painful than necessary and would seek to be flexible in the negotiations on all issues but migration.

Most importantly, however, Brexit serves as a confirmation of the Polish government’s assessment of the EU as a project in need of a substantial “adaptation”. Speaking after the referendum, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, stressed the necessity of a “reform of the EU, which would be also an offer for the UK.”

Such a reform – based on treaty change – should include, according to Kaczyński, a clarification of EU competencies, a strengthening of the subsidiarity principle, and the “widening of unanimity voting.” After the results were announced, Polish President Andrzej Duda wondered aloud whether “the EU does not impose too much on the member states.” In other words: the vote for Brexit is seen as one against the idea of a federalist Europe and an “ever closer union,” rather than an outcome brought about by domestic developments in the UK. This narrative reinforces the Polish government’s approach to the EU.

In the past weeks and months, Warsaw promoted its reform ideas on the back of David Cameron’s February 2016 “deal” – Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymański, in charge of European affairs, called it a “pilot project” that might push the EU “in the right direction and to the right issues.” Cameron’s deal is no longer valid, but its philosophy corresponds with mainstream thinking in Warsaw. In Warsaw’s opinion, a new political contract for Europe would be based on the ideas of flexibility, differentiation, and equal treatment of all EU member states, regardless of their individual levels of integration. Each EU member state should be allowed to define its own integration path – it would be a “multipolar union,” as opposed to a Kerneuropa or European federation.

It remains to be seen how much energy and political capital Warsaw will be ready to invest into translating these ideas into a political initiative. But however much Brexit poses a strategic challenge for the Polish government, it may also create momentum for the Europe á la carte favored today by Warsaw. – BY PIOTR BURAS

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – July/August 2016 issue.

The post One Star Down appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – March/April 2016 issue.

The post Close Up: Jarosław Kaczyński appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

©REUTERS/Marcin Stepien/Agencja Gazeta

And yet, in one respect the refugee crisis has hit Poland just as much as the countries already coping with the influx of migrants: it set off a heated public debate touching upon the most sensitive aspects of Polish political life. Not surprisingly, Polish refugee policy was a controversial and divisive issue in the campaign before the general elections on October 25, an election which brought about – after eight years of the liberal Civic Platform party being at the helm – a change of government, with the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice party receiving its best-ever result of 39 percent of votes. But the election does not fully account for the depth and magnitude of the challenges posed by the still virtual migration problem in Poland.

In fact, the question of if and how Poland should take responsibility in the EU for dealing with refugees is forcing Polish society to confront long overdue questions about identity, community, and foreign policy. The refugee crisis has arguably started changing Poland even before the first migrants arrive in the country.

“They are not refugees, they are aggressors,” screams the front page of the leading conservative weekly Do Rzeczy, calling upon the government to “close Poland’s borders.” The new Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło during the campaign was quoted saying that “instead of Arabs and Negros, Poland should first invite Poles from the East [Polish emigrants to Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet republics].” On the other hand, the liberal media, most notably the largest daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, have been instrumental in pushing the public debate in another direction entirely. That said, its call to support a demonstration at the end of September in Warsaw called “Refugees are welcome” attracted under 2000 people. The opposing nationalist demonstration was at least four times larger.

Deep-Rooted Concerns

Concerns about immigration and, more generally, encountering the “other” are deeply rooted in Poland, as they are in other Central and Eastern European countries. In a striking contrast to Western Europe, this region’s experience with multiculturalism (understood not as a policy but a social reality) is very limited, maybe even non-existent. The memory of Poland between the 16th and 18th century as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire has waned, and fails today to act as a source of identity for the modern nation-state. Prewar Poland was not an immigrant society, and its multicultural character was in no small part to do with the large Jewish (as well as Ukrainian and German) populations, which were long-established minorities in the territories that made up the Polish state at the time.

Today immigrants constitute just 0.3 percent of the country’s population. Accordingly, integration and refugee policies have ranked low on the political agenda for the last 25 years. Poland’s acceptance of around 80,000 Chechen refugees in the 1990s (who either assimilated quickly or left the country soon after) has not changed public perception of immigration or made it a matter of public concern. The refugee crisis and pressure from European partners to accept a fair share of responsibility found Polish society and the state wrong-footed, both mentally and politically. …

Read the complete article in the Berlin Policy Journal App – November/December 2015 issue.

The post Soul Searching appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

(c) REUTERS/Host Photo Agency/RIA Novosti

In an essay on the “Revenge of the Revisionist Powers” in Foreign Affairs, US political scientist Walter Russell Mead thoroughly examines the mistakes of Western thinking after 1989-90.^[1] In his view, we misunderstood the collapse of the Soviet Union: although it was indeed a triumph of liberal, free market democracy over communism, it in no way offered proof that tough power politics had become obsolete.

In fact, China, Iran, and Russia never accepted the framework of the post-Cold War order. Their temporary willingness to play by the new rules was only a function of their relative weakness – it was not an agreement to hold to Western principles. The current crisis in the Western-dominated order may come as a surprise, but only because the West had refused to accept that this order was dependent on power differentials remaining unchanged.

This means Europe may have reached the limit of the stability it can achieve on the continent via expansion of integration projects. The approach worked with the eastern expansion of NATO and the EU between 1999 and 2004, but then met with significant Russian resistance, first in Georgia in 2008, and then dramatically in Ukraine. Over the previous 25 years Moscow may have wanted to influence the European security order from within. Now, it has instead declared a “Ruxit” (Josef Janning^[2]), and begun to create a political and ideological alternative to the West.

Let us assume that the West failed to integrate Russia in a lasting post-Cold War European security order. Should we not correct this mistake and prevent a further disintegration of the situation with a new deal that redefines the rules and takes Russian misgivings into account?

And if the security order has already been thoroughly destroyed, do we then have to choose between two options for the future – “new rules” whereby the West has to compromise on some of its principles, or “no rules” and the threat of chaos?

Wrong Analogies

Or would it rather be helpful to turn to the past for ideas? In some ways today’s situation is similar to that of the 1950s, “when the Soviet Union sought acknowledgement of the territorial status quo and legitimation of its influence in Europe,” write Markus Kaim, Hanns W. Maull, and Kirsten Wesphal^[3] from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). The West’s answer back then was the Harmel Report with its combined approach of deterrence and dialogue and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which led to a modus vivendi. We need a similar new beginning for our security policy, the authors claim, which stresses “security and cooperation,” and would “bring about a peaceful coexistence and ‘coevolution’ between (in short) Western ideas of domestic political order and those of Russia.”

This new order would be rooted in an “acknowledgement of realities” and be oriented around three principles. The principles of national territorial integrity and domestic self-determination must be upheld. The EU must concentrate on strengthening effective statehood along its peripheries – without interfering in sensitive political questions of democracy, media, or elections. Relations with Russia should be stabilized over energy supply and the promotion of long-term trade links. The authors admit that the Europeans will find it difficult to pay the high political price for such compromise. But in their view, “securing a lasting peaceful coexistence in the pan-European region is worth the effort.”

Impractical and Unacceptable

There is, without doubt, some merit to those suggestions. After all, the authors have found the courage to nail down the somewhat nebulous vision of a “new bargain” with Russia with specific measures. At the same time, it is obvious why such a deal is neither practicable nor desirable.

First, the analogy with the 1950s is simply wrong. The current Russian government is less concerned with legitimizing the status quo. It is far more interested in changing it by undermining the principle of self-determination of the states between its territory and the EU. Would “new order” guidelines not in the end lead to the recognition of a Russian zone of influence – even before it has been established?

No less important is a second aspect: Russia’s attack on Ukraine is not aimed against potential membership in NATO or the EU. It is instead primarily against Ukraine’s transition to a functioning democracy. As it is not the West’s promotion of democracy in Eastern Europe that is arousing Moscow’s ire but rather the democratic wishes of the Ukrainians themselves, it would be a mistake to expect symbolic gestures of the West to make any difference to Putin. Moscow sees successful democracies in its immediate neighborhood as a significant threat to the stability of its own regime ­– whether or not those democracies are supported by the West.

The principle of “domestic self-determination” in these “new rules” is also highly problematic. There are two different ways of interfering in another state’s business: “interference” in the sense of EU-type conditionality, to which countries wanting to join the union freely subscribe, and Russian blackmail, which aims to prevent a country from making its own decisions. Russia does not accept “interference” of the first kind, and were the EU to compromise on this it would be a betrayal of one of its fundamental principles.

A policy based on the coexistence of systems would be impossible for a values-based EU to accept – and damaging to its interests. Furthermore, such a policy change would be incompatible with the second guideline: strengthening effective statehood is in most cases hard to imagine without democratization.

No New Cold War

The idea of a new overarching European order including Russia is flawed if it fails to include necessary conditions. Such an agreement would require a minimum of trust ­– trust that has been significantly damaged by Moscow. If we are to learn anything from the analogy with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, we must focus on its open character – the framework of a new peace was only formulated at the end of the process in the Helsinki Accords of 1975, and not at the beginning.

In light of current domestic developments in Russia, a long phase of relative instability and recurring tensions seems inevitable. This does not, however, mark the beginning of a new Cold War. The West must remain ready to talk, not only about Ukraine, but also about the many other global questions in which Russia could play a part – including Iran, the Middle East, and energy supply, among others.

The principle of the 1967 Harmel Report was “détente with adequate defense.” Western strategy must be built equally on the pillars of deterrence plus containment, and on internal coherence and strength of the EU. This will also strengthen Western negotiating positions.

Russia is currently not ready to become a “responsible stakeholder” within a new pan-European order. The West should not put its fundamental values up for negotiation in the naive belief that such a gamble could secure a “long-term peaceful coexistence.”

__

^[1]     Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics. The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014.

^[2]     Josef Janning, “Ruxit Is Real: Russia’s Exit from Europe,” ECFR commentary, February 27, 2015.

^[3]     Markus Kaim, Hanns W. Maull, Kirsten Westphal, “The Pan-European Order at the Crossroads: Three Principles for a New Beginning,” SWP Comments no. 18, March 2015.

Read more articles from the May/June 2015 issue FOR FREE in the Berlin Policy Journal App.

The post The Costs of Coexistence appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.