Spats over who gets to go to EU summit break out in Poland, Finland.
LEIGH PHILLIPS, August 29, 2008.

The emergency European summit called to tackle the Georgian crisis and forge a common European position on the issue is itself causing divisions - but over who gets to go to the extraordinary meeting of EU leaders.

The Polish prime minister and president are scrapping over who gets to attend the meeting, while the decision by the Finnish president to go has pushed aside the country’s foreign minister, Alexander Stubb, who is also the current chair of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

EU leaders to meet in Brussels on Monday 1 September.

Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, although there is no tussle over who gets to attend, President Vaclav Klaus nonetheless has an opposing view to his prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, as to who is responsible for the Georgian conflict.

Conservative Polish president Lech Kaczynski has demanded he be the one to head to Brussels for the summit, rather than the more liberal prime minister, Donald Tusk.

Speaking on Polish radio, the president’s aide, Piotr Kownacki, on Thursday (28 August) said: ” If the president is in the Polish delegation, it is obvious that he lead it due to his office,” according to AFP.

The previous day, the deputy prime minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, had said that if the president attended, it “was not going to help matters,” the French news agency also reported.

Moreover, the two leaders have a slightly differing perspective on the crisis. The president has attacked the peace plan between Russia and Georgia negotiated by French President Nicholas Sarkozy for making no mention of Georgia’s right to territorial integrity.

Mr Tusk, for his part, has not criticised the plan, although he hopes to see a strong position taken by the EU on Russia’s actions.

Mssrs Tusk and Kaczynski are to meet on Friday to attempt to resolve the disagreement.

Over in Finland, President Tarja Halonen has announced she is to attend the summit, meaning that foreign minister Alexander Stubb would have to wait outside while the president and prime minister talk with other EU leaders.

The bumping of the foreign minister this time is causing a bit of a headache for the delegation, as Mr Stubb is also the current chairperson of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with which the EU has been closely working on the Georgian crisis. The foreign minister and former MEP also played a key role in the negotiation of the Sarkozy peace plan as chair of the OSCE.

President Halonen’s chief of staff said on Wednesday that the “starting point” is that the OSCE chairperson will attend and that Finland would have a third seat in the meeting, instead of the normal two, the Helsingin Sanomat reported.

However, Brussels officials have all said that a third seat is “impossible,” according to the Finnish daily.

Mr Stubb may yet be invited to attend separately in his capacity of OSCE chair, but in which case, he would only be able to participate for the length of his presentation.

Elsewhere, although Czech President Vaclav Klaus has been invited, he will not be heading to the summit, with prime minister Mirek Topolánek attending instead, alongside the foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg.

The Czech leaders have diametrically opposed views on the conflict, with President Klaus of the opinion that Georgia is responsible for starting the war, while the prime minister blames Russia.

Mr Schwarzenberg said that such differences are nothing unusual in the government of a democratic state. The main thing, he said, is that it is the government that determines foreign policy, reports the Prague Post.

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Germany and Russia threaten EU-Ukraine relations.
ANDREW RETTMAN

28.08.2008 EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Germany’s close relations with Russia are the main obstacle to signing a major EU-Ukraine treaty at the upcoming EU-Ukraine summit in France, Ukraine diplomats say, warning that failure to seal the deal will signal to Moscow that it can veto EU policy on post-Soviet states.

“There are maybe two or three countries who are strong opposers, strong sceptics,” Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Konstantin Yeliseyev said in Brussels on Thursday (28 August), commenting on EU reluctance to state clearly that “the future of Ukraine lies in the European Union” in the preamble to the new treaty.

“In this regard, we count very much on the leadership of Germany, which is the engine of EU integration and a very powerful country, we count very much on their courage,” he added, saying EU explanations - such as lack of formal consensus among the 27 states or public enlargement fatigue - are “not sincere.”

“Some other countries like Belgium are also opposed. But Berlin is the key,” another Ukraine official said, with just 12 days left to go before the summit in Evian, France. “They are telling us the chancellory is talking to the foreign ministry and so forth, but no matter what they say, the real problem is Russia.”

Germany and Russia have historically close relations, with former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder currently working to help build a new Germany-Russia gas pipeline and with the current chancellor, Angela Merkel, opposing EU diplomatic sanctions against Russia despite Russia’s actions in Georgia.

The statement on EU enlargement is a deal-breaker for Ukraine, which says that if Germany’s preferred wording - that the new treaty “does not prejudge future relations” - is used, it will effectively rule out any Ukraine moves toward EU accession for the next 10 to 15 years, when the pact is due to expire.

Ukraine is also pressing for NATO countries to offer it a Membership Action Plan in December, with Germany also leading opposition at NATO-level to such a move. Mr Yeliseyev warned that lack of a clear political commitment by the West to Ukraine will be seen by Moscow as a green light to expand influence in the east.

“If the [EU-Ukraine] summit is not successful … it will send encouragement to Russia that it can influence EU policy and EU strategy,” he said. “If NATO members don’t take this decision, it will show Russia that by using force, they can influence the process of enlargement and obtain a kind of domination of the post-Soviet states.”

The deputy minister underlined that Ukraine sees the EU as a guardian of economic and political stability, in contrast to NATO’s hard security role. “We consider NATO as a father and the EU as a mother. With a father it’s mostly physical protection, security protection. With a mother it is mostly economic protection,” he said.

Mr Yeliseyev explained that the Russia-Georgia war has raised security concerns in Ukraine due to the situation in Crimea, where 60 percent of inhabitants are ethnically Russian and where Russia keeps its Black Sea fleet, which was used against Georgia, making Ukraine a “third party to this conflict.”

“If Ukrainian security detorirated, it would not be a Georgia scenario, it would be a more dangerous scenario,” he said, with the 50 million-strong, former nuclear power currently controlling most of Russia’s natural gas exports to the EU.

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EU fears Russian action in Ukraine and Moldova: A peace mural in Stepanakert, Azerbaijan: Russia’s action have emboldened separatists across eastern Europe.
PHILIPPA RUNNER, 28.08.2008

French and UK foreign ministers have voiced fears Russia may be planning Georgia-type scenarios in EU neighbours Ukraine and Moldova, amid rising tension between Ukraine and Russia and fresh calls for independence by Moldovan rebels.

“I repeat, it [Russia’s action in Georgia] is very dangerous, and there are other objectives that one can suppose are objectives for Russia, in particular the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova,” France’s Bernard Kouchner said on Europe 1 radio on Wednesday (27 August).

The remark comes after Russia this week formally recognised two rebel enclaves in Georgia - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - as independent states, following a Georgian attack on South Ossetian capital Tskinvali, to which Russia responded with a military incursion into Georgia.

Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova all broke away from Russia’s sphere of influence in the past five years to seek integration with NATO and the EU.

But in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, 58 percent of people are ethnically Russian and hundreds of thousands hold Russian passports, with some groups calling for the territory to split from Ukraine. Crimea is also home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

In Moldova, the Russophone Transniestria region gained de facto independence after a civil war in 1992. The strip of land still houses 1,300 Russian troops.

UK foreign minister David Miliband on a visit to Ukraine on Wednesday shared Mr Kouchner’s concern, urging Kiev “not to provide any pretext for Russian actions because, of course, the Russians have used those pretexts in the Georgian case.”

The British foreign secretary said the war in Georgia marked “the end of the post Cold War period of growing geopolitical calm in and around Europe.”

“Ukraine could be the next target of political pressure by Russia,” EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn told a meeting of Finnish ambassadors in Helsinki the same day, AFP reports. “It is important from a stability point of view that the EU sends a clear political signal that Ukraine’s integration into the [European] Union is possible.”

***

Crimean confrontation:

Ukraine-Russia relations worsened on Wednesday as President Viktor Yushchenko condemned Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and revealed plans to raise the price for the Russian navy’s land lease in the Crimea port of Sevastopol.

Violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity “fuels tensions, not only in the Caucasus,” he said, Interfax reports. “Fundamental agreements and principles of trust … can be lost via thoughtless steps, when diplomacy and the policy of peaceful settlement are replaced with a policy of force.”

The Sevastopol lease move comes after Mr Yushchenko earlier threatened to ban Russian ships used in the war against Georgia from returning to port. Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday warned the president against enflaming pro-Russian feeling on the peninsula by targeting the fleet.

“If we don’t change the position on Crimea, if we don’t harmonise relations with the Black Sea fleet, we will be in for very serious problems,” she said.

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Transnistria next?

Russia’s recognition of the two regions also raised the temperature in Moldova on Wednesday, with Transnistria separatists predicting their turn will come next.

“As regards the recognition of Transnistria, this is a matter of time,” the rebels’ military chief Vladimir Atamaniuc told Russian newswires. “It is Moldova that should be the first to recognise us,” said Oleg Gudymo, a member of the internationally unrecognised Transnistrian parliament. “If they want to live in peace with us they have no other option.”

Earlier this week, Russia’s ambassador to Moldova, Valeri Kuzmin, also used threatening language on the frozen conflict. “Moldova should draw its own positive conclusions after the conflict in South Ossetia,” he said. “I believe [Moldovan] leaders will use their wisdom … to not allow such a bloody and catastrophic trend of events”

***

Stepanakert statement:

While Russia is still waiting for any of its allies to join it in recognising the Georgian separatists, the Russian-backed breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan yesterday gave its support.

“This fully meets the principle of the self-determination of nations and fundamental norms of international law,” the Nagorno-Karabakh “foreign ministry” in Stepanakert said, warning Azerbaijan that any use of force would end in a Georgia-like “humanitarian catastrophe.”

EU and US-ally Azerbaijan is a growing exporter of oil to Europe via a pipeline bypassing Russia and aims to ship natural gas to the west through the EU’s future Nabucco pipeline as well.

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EU sanctions would be ‘grave mistake,’ Russia says
RENATA GOLDIROVA

August 29, 2008, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS

As the European Union considers imposing sanctions against Russia over its recognition of independence for Georgia’s rebel regions, Moscow has said that any punitive measures would be a “grave mistake,” harming the 27-nation bloc as much as Russia itself.

“First of all, I highly doubt that [sanctions] might ever happen, but hypothetically speaking, this would be to the detriment of the European Union as much, if not more, than to Russia,” Russia’s ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said on Thursday (28 August).

France has called an emergency EU summit on 1 September to reassess relations with Russia.

The comment comes shortly ahead of an emergency EU summit scheduled for 1 September in order to reassess the union’s ties with Moscow in the face of its actions in the South Caucasus.

France, the current EU president, has warned that “sanctions are being considered and many other means as well” - words that were quickly denounced by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who said the idea showed the workings of a “sick imagination.”

In practice, just a few countries - mainly the UK, Sweden, Poland and three Baltic EU states - are pushing for a tough line against Russia.

Even if achieved, punitive measures could be limited to no more than suspension of visa-free travel talks or postponement of negotiations on a new EU-Russia treaty, currently scheduled for 16 September, EU diplomats said.

“I can only express the wish that European leaders will be able to rise above the emotions of the day and consider seriously and without prejudice the perspectives of strategic partnership with their important partner, the Russian Federation,” ambassador Chizhov told journalists in Brussels.

“We need the new agreement as much as the EU does - not less, not more,” he concluded.

The French EU presidency itself will not table punitive measures, while Germany - which is heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas - also has little appetite for punishing Moscow.

“We are strongly committed to keeping open channels to Russia. We have to look at who will be hurt by sanctions, what will be the costs and benefits,” one senior German official was cited as saying by the Financial Times.

German Socialist MEP Martin Schulz told Financial Times Deutschland: “[Sanctions] would play into the hands of radical elements in Moscow, who want an escalation of the conflict.”

An isolated Russia?

Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - widely seen as the man driving Kremlin policy - has accused Washington of playing a role in the current conflict in Georgia to benefit one of the US presidential candidates.

“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president,” Mr Putin said in a CNN interview on Thursday (28 August).

He explained that US citizens had been present in the area during hostilities, following direct orders from Washington, which also trained and supplied the Georgian army.

The White House dismissed the allegations by describing them as “not rational” and “patently false.”

Another round of verbal attacks took place at the United Nations last night (28 August), with Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin accusing the US of hypocrisy. He cited the US-led invasion of Iraq and Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia, backed by major Western powers, as examples.

“I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States [about] weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq or are you still looking for them?” Mr Churkin said, according to Reuters.

So far, no country has followed Russia in recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, although Moscow’s Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said he expected a “number of countries” to do so, with Belarus suggesting it may take the step before the weekend.

Virtual integrity

Mr Chizhov referred to Georgia’s territorial integrity as a “virtual concept” rather than reality, even arguing that Russia’s moves are justified under the peace plan brokered two weeks ago by French leader Nicolas Sarkozy - a deal seen as too vague and too Russia-friendly.

“Let me refer to the six-point plan of Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy, which does not include a reference of territorial integrity and it’s not a mistake … it was deliberate I would say,” the Russian diplomat said.

But Russia has failed to win backing from its allies within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, whose leaders limited themselves to supporting Russia’s “active role in promoting peace” in the post-conflict phase.

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France accuses Russia of ethnic cleansing: Kouchner in Georgia during the five-day war.
PHILIPPA RUNNER, 27.08.2008.

Talk of “war” and “ethnic cleansing” hit European TV channels on Tuesday (26 August) as France and Russia debated Moscow’s hard backing of rebel groups in Georgia. But plans for next week’s EU summit and new EU-Russia energy links remain unaltered for now.

“We fear a war and we don’t want one,” French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said on the France 2 television station, after Russia gave formal recognition to Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions earlier in the day. “If it’s hot, we don’t want it.”

The minister showed a map of South Ossetia and pointed to the town of Akhalgori, saying: “Tonight, Russian troops are sweeping through it, pushing Georgians out and over the border. It’s ethnic cleansing.”

In a separate interview on France’s LCI channel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dared the EU to impose diplomatic sanctions at next week’s EU summit. “If they want a degradation of relations, they will get it,” he said. “The ball is in the European camp.”

“We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War,” the president also said on the Russia Today TV channel. On the Arabic Al-Jazeera network he spoke of using “military means” against a future US missile base in Poland.

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO members of rearming Georgia. “They are even starting to supply new types of weapons, restoring the military infrastructure that was used in the aggression,” he said, Ria Novosti reports.

The rhetoric coming from Poland and Georgia was no less harsh, with Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski telling Polish daily Dziennik Russia will “again lose” in a confrontation with the “10 times richer” West.

“The end of the revival of Russia’s imperialism has started,” Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said, calling for Europe to impose a travel ban on Russian leaders and their families, while claiming he has “serious signals” that the crisis will speed up Georgia’s integration with NATO and the EU.

Business as usual?

Germany continued to sound a calmer note throughout the day, however, indicating that suspension of EU-Russia treaty talks is still not on the cards. “We will not solve conflicts if we do not talk to each other,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said on a visit to Lithuania, DPA reports.

Ms Merkel’s trip to the Baltic states and Sweden is aimed at promoting a new Germany-Russia gas pipeline - Nord Stream - which Germany calls a “strategic European project,” but which the former-communist EU states fear will strengthen Russia’s energy leverage against eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, French EU presidency officials quietly brushed aside a joint proposal by Poland, Sweden and the Baltic countries to invite the fiery Mr Saakashvili to the EU summit on Monday. “The idea did not meet with much enthusiasm,” a Polish diplomat told PAP.

Russia’s recognition of the rebel enclaves will make the EU meeting more “complicated,” Dutch Green MEP Joost Lagendijk commented. “With this, it will be more difficult for the moderates to say: ‘We should not alienate Russia’,” he told AFP.

Kosovo parallel:

With Russia continuing to draw parallels between South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Kosovo - which has been recognised 46 countries worldwide - individual Belarusian MPs were the only non-Russian entities to back Moscow in its recognition of the two rebel regions so far.

“I’m sure that Belarus will become one of the first countries to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Belarus lower house delegate Aleksei Ostrovsky said, BelaPAN reports.

But Minsk remained quiet on Wednesday morning, with EU diplomats noting that President Alexander Lukashenko is currently trying to improve relations with Brussels to offset Russia’s influence on his eonomically-fragile dictatorship.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance] is to meet in Tajikistan to discuss the Georgia issue on Thursday.

But Moscow’s traditional allies have also taken a back seat in the conflict for now, amid an EU push to offer Central Asia new ways of breaking Russia’s monopoly on its transit of oil and gas to Europe.

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Bulgaria makes case for Nabucco pipeline.
RENATA GOLDIROVA, 28.08.2008.

Bulgaria has called on the EU to throw all its weight behind the Nabucco energy corridor, a pipeline designed to lessen the bloc’s dependency on Russian gas.

“Finding enough supplies is the big problem and it cannot be solved just by the efforts of the companies in the Nabucco consortium … Without a political deal, this case cannot be solved,” Bulgarian economy minister Petar Dimitrov said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday (27 August).

The Nabucco project - connecting Turkey with Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary - should enable the transportation of Caspian energy resources to the European market, but it remains unclear how to feed the pipeline.

Earlier this year, Turkmenistan agreed to supply 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas to the European Union each year. In addition, the union hopes the bulk of the supplies could come from countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Egypt or Iraq.

In order to address this very point, Mr Dimitrov suggested a high level political meeting take place between the EU and potential suppliers as well as transiting countries.

“Russia is holding political talks to buy out the available gas from the Caspian region … I believe the EU should also hold such political talks and not narrow it all down to just principal support for the Nabucco project,” the Bulgarian minister told Reuters.

According to Forbes, Russia’s state-run gas monopoly, Gazprom, offered to buy all of Azerbaijan’s gas exports earlier this month.

Demand for energy is sharply rising in the European Union and it is expected to import at least 360 bcm - out of 500 bcm consumed - from countries beyond the 27-country bloc by 2020. At the same time, the EU has been trying to diversify its energy supplies away from Russia.

The Nabucco project’s capacity amounts to 31 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. The EU hopes construction will begin in 2010.

The route of the Nabucco pipeline (Photo: Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry)