Opšti topik o EU (ex kriza Evrozone)

[Dr Arslanagić]

СПД је већ дуго у опозицији али опет Меркелова може једино Шредеру да захвали што је данас Немачка соло мотор ЕУ. Економија данашње Немачке је његово чедо а интересантно је да се Меркелова не сналази најбоље у позицији моћи коју снага те економије доноси.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Dr Arslanagić

[aram]

СПД је већ дуго у опозицији али опет Меркелова може једино Шредеру да захвали што је данас Немачка соло мотор ЕУ. Економија данашње Немачке је његово чедо а интересантно је да се Меркелова не сналази најбоље у позицији моћи коју снага те економије доноси.

 

sve +1, osim što SPD od 2013. nije u opoziciji nego u vladajućoj koaliciji.

[Dr Arslanagić]

Јој заборавих.

[MancMellow]

U medjuvremenu - Italija (B92)

 

 

 

Stručnjaci Unikredit banke predviđaju da je privredni rast u prvom kavrtalu bio pozitivan prvi put od 2011. i iznosio 0,2 odsto. Neki drugi podaci, međutim, ne pružaju razlog za optimizam. Industrijska proizvodnja je u januaru pala 0,7 odsto, nezaposlenost je u februaru porasla na 12,7 odsto, a među mladima na čak 42,6 odsto. 

Potencijal privrednog rasta Italije zabrinjavajuće je nizak, navodi američki list. Ekonomisti banke "JP Morgan" smatraju da će rast BDP-a u narednim godinama biti na nultom nivou.

 

Ove brojke ukoloko su tacne su katastrofa. Uzevsi u obzir da je i njima dug oko 132% GDP-ija. A Italija ako se zagrcne ode sve u pm. A sa nultim rastom postoje sanse da se to desi. 

Edited April 4, 2015 by MancMellow

[Budja]

Pogresan topic.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Budja

[Prospero]

4/29/2015

 

Brussels blames Gazprom for its own failings 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/861e371ae9ad11e4a68700144feab7de.

Pierre Noel

 

Russian group’s pricing policies reflect dysfunctional gas market in Europe, writes Pierre Noel

 

 

It is hard to think of an antitrust case as geopolitically charged as the one announced in Brussels last week against Gazprom. The Russian stateowned

company stands accused of anticompetitive practices allowing it to charge “unfair prices” in several EU countries.

 

A year ago Günther Oettinger, then EU energy commissioner, appeared before an audience in Poland to decry what he called a “game of divide and rule proposed by Moscow [which] cannot be and will not be accepted by EU member states”. Brussels’ aim, he added, was “a uniform gas price in the European common market”.

 

Yet if there were a European common market, there would already be a uniform price. The resale restrictions that the commission says it found in some of Gazprom’s contracts in central Europe would clearly be illegal under EU law. But they cannot explain why competition did not spread to this part of Europe. When the commission first decided to shake up the continent’s gas markets in the late 1990s, it took a leaf out of the British rule book and asked member states to create national pipeline companies, regulated by national agencies and funded by gas consumers. In the UK, a large market with several suppliers in the North Sea, such a system had allowed competition to emerge. Yet in most EU countries it was competition in name only.

 

What Europe needed was a market for pan European gas transport, ignoring national borders, which would do three things: bring about efficient use of existing long distance pipelines; reveal what additional infrastructure was needed; and allow independent investors to raise finance to build it. Such a system exists in the US, and properly designed reforms could have created one in Europe. Instead, we have a patchwork of national pipeline systems and regulatory agencies, which fails to deliver a proper European market.

 

The exception is northwest Europe, where an integrated market has indeed emerged. This success owes a lot to the existence of facilities for receiving liquefied natural gas in several countries, and a large pipeline between Britain and Belgium, which was built and operated outside EU regulations. The result: when LNG prices plummeted relative to Russian gas from 2008 onwards, Gazprom came under pressure to adapt its pricing model in northwest Europe and eventually yielded.

 

The main reason this never happened in central and eastern Europe has little to do with Gazprom’s business practices and a lot to do with European rules — which make long distance trading all but impossible, obscure market signals about the infrastructure that is needed, and make it hard to finance crossborder pipelines. If it had to decide today, it is unlikely that the European Commission would allow Britain’s pipeline to Europe to be built. Yet it has not put in place a workable alternative model.

 

Gazprom benefits from poor market structures that generate only weak competition in the gas markets of eastern Europe. But its pricing policies primarily reflect Europe’s dysfunctional gas market. When Poland signed a longterm contract to buy LNG from Qatar, it accepted a pricing formula that is among the most expensive in the world even though companies in the UK buy the same stuff for much less. So far, Brussels has said nothing to indicate that it considers the Qataris culpable of any breach of competition law, or that they are proposing a game of divide and rule.

 

The main reason Gazprom’s pricing power is not checked by competition in central and eastern Europe is not that it cheats, but that Europe’s gas policy has not worked. The commission seems to think that, since it has declared that a common market exists, companies are obliged to behave as if it did. This is fanciful. Brussels should not blame Gazprom for its own policyv failures.

 

 

The writer is senior fellow for economic and energy security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore

 

 

[Cort0 Maltese]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/01/us-italy-expo-clashes-idUSKBN0NM3Z620150501?mod=related&channelName=worldNews

 

(Reuters) - Black-clad protesters in Milan torched two cars and clashed with police, who responded with tear gas as violence broke out at a demonstration at the start of the Expo 2015.

Dozens of demonstrators, their faces masked against clouds of tear gas, threw firecrackers and dragged burning rubbish bins to block streets in the center of the city while sirens rang out.

 

 

Kako javlja Rojters, „nekoliko desetina“ demonstranata sukobili su se s policijom u Milanu na početku otvaranja Svetske izložbe Ekspo 2015 i zapalili dva vozila, a policija je protiv njih upotrebila suzavac. Oni su bacali petarde na policiju, a blokirali su ulice u centru grada zapaljenim automobilskim gumama, prenosi agencija.

Međutim, snimci ipak pokazuju malo dramatičniju sliku, a „dva automobila“ na fotografijama raznih agencija možete videti iz raznih uglova, samo što je reč o različita „dva automobila“.

Oko 20.000 ljudi je učestvovalo na demonstracijama pod nazivom „Ne Ekspu – prvomajska parada“. Pred otvaranje izložbe koja je ove godine upriličena pod sloganom „Nahranimo planetu – energija za život“, više hiljada policajaca je dovedeno da bi „sprečili nasilje na zakazanom protestu“.

Demonstranti se protive izložbi jer tvrde da njihova vlast traći državni novac na grandiozni događaj od kog će profit imati isključivo korporacije, a da zemlja, koja sve dublje tone u ekonomsku krizu neće imati nikakve koristi od toga.

 

Neovisno i vjerodostojno novinarstvo. <_<

[Budja]

Lose vesti za grcku vladu. Podemos se izduvao, "venecuelanski placenik" Monederos podneo ostavku, Podemos pada u pulovima.

 

PP opet vodi,  ali je jos uvek trka u cetvoro.

[Cort0 Maltese]

[Eraserhead]

Zanimljivo kako "antifasista" Putin privlaci simpatije ovakvih i mnogo gorih likova sirom Evrope. 

[Cort0 Maltese]

Zanimljivije je ovo šta veli kako se liberali i zeleni pjene i vrište za rat. Al to je valjda normalna pojava da političke opcije tog spektra pozivaju na militarizaciju i huškaju na rat.

[Prospero]

može i na rusku ili ukrajinsku temu ali pošto se radi bazično o politici eu prema istoku (i konceptu 'kooperativne konfrontacije' prema rusiji) najbolje je ovde:

 

Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik

SWP Comments

 

EU Options on Russia and the Eastern Partners

“Cooperative Confrontation” as the Guiding Principle beyond the Riga Summit

Kai-Olaf Lang and Barbara Lippert

 

 

Moscow’s hegemonic stance on the post-Soviet space and its provocations in Ukraine force the European Union to find strategic clarity in its eastern neighbourhood. Often in the midst of discontinuous internal reform processes, the countries to the Union’s east find themselves hanging between a vague “wider Europe” proposal from Brussels and Moscow’s increasingly forceful idea of a “wider Russia”. At the May 2015 Riga Summit the EU heads of state and government will meet with their counterparts from the Eastern Partnership, including the new associates Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. The EU should grant these countries political guarantees, material assistance and European perspectives. But the European Union can only develop bilateral and plurilateral European perspectives if it faces up to the Russian factor and realigns its relations with Moscow on

the Eastern Policy triangle of stability, cooperation and norm-driven transformation.

 

In 2009, with the Eastern Partnership, the European Union established a structured policy of closer relations with its immediate neighbours in eastern Europe, as well as in the southern Caucasus. This move took account of both the Union’s geographical and political eastward expansion and the

political and institutional transformations in the post-Soviet space.

 

Interests and Objectives in the East

 

By instituting the European Neighbourhood Policy and later the Eastern Partnership, the European Union recognised – initially hesitantly, then increasingly decisively – the fact of governmental and thus strategic plurality in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Alongside the dominant

relationship to Russia, the European Union and its member states sought bilateral cooperations with the “newly independent states” to their east. While cooperation with direct neighbours was initially subsidiary or secondary to Russia, the European Union increasingly departed from this “Russia first” approach both in its selfunderstanding and in its political practice. Cooperative relations with individual neighbours and possible multilateral dialogue forums were now to be shaped by the principle of self-determined bilateralism, even if the axiom of benevolent involvement of Russia still applied. The essence of these equal and independent two-way relationships is to bring countries immediate to the east economically, politically and normatively closer to the European Union by supporting socio-economic and political/institutional reforms. The process is driven by the hope of generating convergence and stability. Russia’s perception changed as it came to regard the European Union’s engagement as an intrusion threatening its near abroad, which it regards an immediate sphere of influence. Suddenly the candidate for a modernisation partnership became a geopolitical rival; indifference and mistrust gave way to rejection and hostility.

 

The friction entered its hottest phase to date with the conflict over and in Ukraine, where the European Union and its member states found themselves confronted with a qualitatively new Russian “hard power” and an explicit anti-association policy. At this point they had only just begun implementing an ambitious and difficult programme of reforms with selected neighbouring states, packaged in a new type of association agreement with provisions for a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA). The military escalation and humanitarian situation in Ukraine have forced the European Union into permanent crisis management mode, with security issues and the search for diplomatic compromise dominating its agenda. In the current clashes with Moscow over Ukraine, the Union must guard its interests and objectives in the eastern neighbourhood, possibly reformulating them in the face of new circumstances. Subsequently, promoting security and stability, supporting inclusive cooperation, and continuing to foster normative transformative change should be key priorities of EU action. Particularly, the course of events compels the Union to underline the axiom of its neighbourhood policy: autonomy in shaping and developing bilateral relations with partners. If it were to grant third parties substantial influence in order to neutralise their capacity to disrupt, this would not only harm the Union’s predictability. Other external actors might also be encouraged to counteract European actions through preventive or reactive interventions. Although the substance of the bilateral partnerships may vary, the European Union should always make sure they are reform-friendly and modernisation-stimulating, in order to guide neighbouring states towards social market economy, pluralist democratic models and better governance.

 

At the same time, the European Union must be interested in maintaining cooperative relations with Russia and keeping open the perspective of reviving them more energetically. In view of the present situation, use should be made of the possibility to largely decouple certain areas – in the first place energy and international and global security – from conflicts of interest over “shared neighbourhoods”. There will, however, also be more volatile fields that can be directly harmed by the current conflict, such as trade and technological cooperation. The question in the medium and long term is, in what areas – under the premise of Moscow’s constructive cooperation – a resumption of cooperation should be sought and to which, drawing lessons from the current conflict, should less energy be dedicated. The European Union should also work, in the overall context of its relationships, to restore good relations, transparency and stability between Russia and its neighbours and among the neighbours. Principles such as openness to cooperation, multilateral alliances, compatibility of economic and trade areas, and amelioration of the consequences of cooperation for all involved including Russia should continue to apply. 

 

Strategic Options for EU-Russia Relations

 

EU-Russia relations need to be rethought in light of the Ukraine crisis and the war. The relationship is likely to be determined by a grave lack of trust and tense volatility for a long time to come. Phases of pragmatism can be abruptly interrupted by reversals and partial escalations. At the same time the European Union is interested in predictable relations with structures and procedures that channel or at least structure conflict. The Union must base its Russia policy on the three tenets, which it has pursued in its Eastern Policy: a stable pan-European or regional order, cooperation as the defining mode of action, and pursuit of a transformative and normative policy of support for reforms. The more weight the European Union can lend that triad, the greater its political credibility will be. Of the three fundamentally conceivable  options outlined below, “cooperative confrontation” (Option 3) best serves the threefold objectives. 

 

Option 1: Strategic concert

The option of a strategic concert is based on the idea that Russia possesses a fundamental  interest in having at least an informal agreement on spheres of interest and influence in the shared neighbourhood. Moreover, Moscow has the power to stir trouble in the neighbourhood any time it chooses, with considerable potential for intervention and escalation. Consequently, it is proposed, the European Union would be ready to enter into a concert of interests. This would largely involve defining red lines for the individual shared neighbours’ relations to Moscow and Brussels and agreeing the parameters within which bilateral relationships may develop. 

Such a circumscribed cohabitation would return the European Union to a barely disguised “Russia first” policy, because Russian concerns would be excessively prioritised and a de facto condominium would emerge for the European part of the post-Soviet space. The Union would establish a kind of normative equidistance and sacrifice the principle of external and internal freedom of choice for the states between the European Union and Russia to a (supposedly) stability-promoting concord. An order thus configured would be chronically unstable, because it freezes the status quo while making little in the way of cooperative provision for dealing with the dynamics that inevitably arise in the neighbourhood countries, which are in transition and in at least some cases include strong pro-Western forces some of which would not simply accept deals done over their heads. The political price for the European Union would be enormous. It would lose political credibility with its neighbours and permit Moscow to set limits to their transformations. This would make the Union an accomplice of the neo-autocratic Russia rather than an honest broker and advocate of the interests of democracy-seeking neighbours. However, Russia might in return offer constructive cooperation on other questions of international politics that are of concern to the European Union. Inside the EU, this option would be unacceptable to many of the Russia-critical and traditionally pro-Atlantic member states  in eastern and northern Europe, whereas more “pragmatic” governments in all parts of the Union would be likely to be more amenable. Similar positions are proposed by the more than sixty signatories of the “appeal for a new policy of détente” of December 2014, including some prominent pragmatists from the Cold War era. On the academic front the option of a strategic concert fits with political recommendations prioritising the inviolability of the internal order (Kaim, Maull and Westphal) or arguing the imperative of security and order (“Ordnungssicherheit”, Baberowski). 

 

Option 2: Containment

A policy built on containment would aim to limit Russia’s influence on its neighbours  and within the European Union. The classical instruments would be dissociation and disengagement through block-building and downgrading of the relationship at all levels. Unlike in the Cold War era, containment could create the preconditions for both sides to return to a relaxation of the relationship at some later stage: blockbuilding, is neither finished nor recognised as objective reality. Moreover, it is highly controversial.

The containment option would demand close European-American coordination. In essence it would mean actively promoting Westernisation in the European Union’s (and NATO’s) eastern neighbourhoods and at least not excluding the option of future membership in Western alliance systems.

EU and NATO membership would go hand in hand, as they did in the largely successful expansion and transformation process in eastern and south-eastern Europe.

While such an expansion policy might discourage Russia from pursuing destabilisation, at least in its immediate eastern European neighbourhood, the conflict dynamics and risks of continuing Russian escalation dominance and willingness to intervene would present a great danger to stability. Then the West would only be able to counter successfully if it was willing and able to bear high costs, to remain engaged even in the face of massive disruption, and to act in resolute unanimity. A further weakness of this option is that it minimises possibilities for cooperation with Russia and would thus also impair those areas of the West’s relationship with Russia (such as international politics and energy) that have to date remained detached from the conflict. 

Such a containment policy would force the neighbours to choose one camp or the other and would prematurely cement differentiations appearing among the Eastern Partnership. It would potentially contribute to the formation of two rigid blocs – the three associate countries (Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine) and the other neighbours – and exacerbate latent conflicts such as those over breakaway regions. 

The Union’s political credibility would depend on whether it was able to repeat the demonstration of its power of transformation and unfold a magnetic attraction reaching to Russia’s borders. On questions of military security the Union would retain a junior role. This is the line of argument taken by Anne Applebaum and US foreign policy experts from the Republican side, as well as parts of the political spectrum in Poland and the Baltic states.

 

Option 3: Cooperative confrontation

The European policy of “cooperative confrontation” starts from the fact that the two sides’ ideas of order became irreconcilable after Russia abandoned the principles of the CSCE Final Act of Helsinki (1975) and the Charter of Paris (1990). The European Union can continue to adhere to these principles yet still seek an elementary interaction with Russia – basing its policy on a combination of interest-based selective cooperation and containment of imperial power. It would thus be prepared for conflict and would support NATO’s policy of reassurance and extended deterrence in a

“division of labour”. At the level of society, however, it would continue to develop contacts and offer opportunities for communication. The sense and purpose of cooperative confrontation would not be regime change in Russia.

This option would involve a differentiation in the value dimension in European Eastern Policy. While the European Union would maintain its paradigm of reconfiguring its neighbours comprehensively and thus also normatively towards responsible governance, democratisation and market economy, it would also account for Russia’s peculiarity. Russia is different and may remain so. But it must respect any internal change its neighbours wish for. The European Union should abide by its policy of open-ended partial economic integration of its eastern neighbours, as proposed in the current  ssociation agreements, and continue to pursue the goals of value convergence, democratisation and economic transformation. The superordinate goal of normative transformation does not in principle preclude continuing and developing cooperative relations even with undemocratic countries, where the European Union will have to set the bar lower and resort to different incentives than with countries that are more open towards reforms and Europeanisation. Regardless of the internal affairs of its direct neighbours, their wish for self-determination in foreign policy must be respected. The Union must make no agreements with third parties that could restrict that autonomy, nor pursue any active policy of “regime change”.

Following this line, the European Union and its member states would unswervingly continue the EU-isation of willing neighbouring states, and grant Russia absolutely no influence over their future relationship to the European Union. They would, however, offer compromises on the scope and depth of the hard security stance and continue to maintain a sample of fields of cooperation, such as energy, arms control, economic contacts and global hotspots. In contrast to the containment option, the European Union would support and shape a status for neighbouring countries that included security non-alignment for a certain period (no eternity clause) or under certain conditions but impeded neither their European perspective nor its materialisation. 

The European Union and NATO would have to agree on a division of labour. The associate countries could be brought gradually into a closer relationship with NATO of the kind Sweden and Finland already have today. Despite ongoing ambivalences and the postponement of a decision on

the question of membership in the EuroAtlantic structures, this could still mean a gain in security. If these processes were accompanied by corresponding diplomacy towards Russia, this would also contribute to an increase in regional stability. This is  the thrust of proposals to contain Russia (HSFK-Report 2014) or directly hedge Putin’s illiberal strategy while keeping open perspectives of cooperation (Nye).

The European Union cannot align its short- and medium-term Russia policy on the ideal of a pan-European structure, whether economic or political in nature. But within the scope of this option it can create pillars that could later be inserted into such a continental architecture. It would seek integration of Russia while at the same time ensuring that the neighbours were able to preserve their political self-determination. Admittedly, Russia has shown no interest in such a constructive arrangement, which in essence would comprise compatible trade areas and economic spaces (European Economic Area and Eurasian Economic Union).

But what if Moscow insists on pursuing the existing systemic rivalry with Brussels by military or other coercive means? The European Union would then have to stay its course, not abandoning a policy based on self-determination for its neighbours for the sake of a strategic concert to strike a “grand bargain”. Apart from endurance in implementing this concept, the Union will also have to demonstrate solidarity with the associated neighbours and bear the political and financial costs. Thus the strategic response to Russia’s actions would be to promote resilience among the Union’s neighbours and demonstrate patient confidence in its own policy.

 

Perspectives for the Eastern Partnership

 

The three main elements that have characterised the European Union’s policy towards Russia since the annexation of Crimea – sanctions against Russia’s economy and politicians, strengthening Ukraine, and continuing openness to dialogue with Moscow – are compatible with the option of

cooperative confrontation. But what is the future of neighbourhood relations aside and apart from crisis diplomacy?

 

The Vilnius Summit of the Eastern Partnership in November 2013 was an important  milestone in the European Union’s relations with the six partners in its direct eastern neighbourhood: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.  On the basis of their agreements with the European Union, the depth of cooperation  sought in the medium term and the prospects of integration, these countries now fall into two camps.

 

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have concluded association agreements that include a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA), and are thus on a course of economic integration and political association.

 

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus each represent a special case. Because of its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, Armenia is exploring a special relationship to the European Union below that of association agreement with DCFTA. This could produce a model for countries whose interest in political transformation is limited but are nonetheless motivated by the dominant Russian vector in their external relations to diversify their economic and probably also political ties. Azerbaijan prefers purely economic bilateral relations with the European Union, labelled as a strategic modernisation partnership. As was already known before Vilnius, their interest is limited to innovation and industrial cooperation – demonstrating the prevalence of differentiation within the Eastern Partnership space. Belarus remains a specific case where there is not even a partnership and cooperation  agreement (PCA) as a baseline and the European Union pursues a sanctions policy (however granting visa facilitation to specific groups and supporting NGOs). The European Union could send a message to Belarus by seeking a PCA concentrating on economic contacts and bilateral political relations above the working level, and could also gradually relax its sanctions without renouncing its public stance against political justice and human rights violations. In all three countries the European Union should press for expansion of cooperation with civil society and development of minimum standards for civil society engagement. 

 

For Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, with which association agreements have already been concluded, the foremost need is for ambitious implementation strategies and assistance tailored to reform priorities. Aside from association agendas and action plans, administrative capacities must be understood as an overarching challenge located at different levels. Alongside the activities associated with association agreements and DCFTAs in the three countries, the European Union must work determinedly to seek pragmatic arrangements for the breakaway regions of Transnistria,

Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for Crimea, and foreseeably also for a future demarcated zone in Donbas. These regions and zones should participate at least partially in trade arrangements, and possibly even mobility.

 

Beyond this, the European Union must develop an approach towards its neighbours that encompasses all the instruments of external action including the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). In view of the conflicts involved, a "standalone”  association policy is inadequate. Following the model of the stabilisation and association processes for the Western Balkans, the European Union should considerably step up its efforts in security policy as well as its diplomatic commitment in the associated countries and launch considerably more initiatives addressed to them. Although Russia is an opponent and intervention force in the post-Soviet space, the possibilities of foreign policy and security influence must still be explored within the parameters of cooperative confrontation. In the case of Ukraine it would be advisable to support reform of the security sector in a manner that extends beyond the small civilian advisory mission (EUAM), for example considering targeted technical and management consulting to modernise and realign the Ukrainian defence industry. Although that would generate political controversy within the European Union, it would be an effective compensation for the denial of NATO membership.

 

Prospectively these efforts could be bundled and neighbouring countries offered European security partnerships. Doing so within the frame of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would imply at least toleration by Russia. Multilaterally the establishment of an EU Eastern Partnership security format would be a visible sign of greater foreign policy and security engagement by the European Union, while an eastern European equivalent of the Stability Pact for the Western Balkans would open the door to diplomatic support including international partners; priorities would be reconstruction, economic development, regional cooperation and coordination of aid, possibly with the later addition of a special coordinator. 

 

The Eastern Partnership is currently a weakly structured symbolic framework that offers a great deal of scope for elasticity and cooperation tailored to individual partners. This “EU plus six forum” embodies a political statement of the European Union’s special responsibility for a broad swathe of its neighbourhood. Aside from that, this framework will continue to offer possibilities for contacts with these very different neighbours. However, the European Union could be interested in the multilateral component of the Eastern Partnership reflecting the differentiation among the six, for

example by establishing a politically more contoured multilateral format with the three partners that are closer to the Union, presently Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. Despite the failure of similar initiatives in the 1990s, such as the congress of Europe and structured political dialogues, such a

format might find greater acceptance in countries whose internal conditions and external circumstances are very much more problematic.

 

Either way, the European Union will be confronted in Riga with the question of whether it wants to enter into a political obligation along the lines of the Thessaloniki Declaration for the Western Balkans (2003). Presumably it will not (yet). But the European Union can still announce that association need not be the final state of relations and that the Union remains an open community. The central message of Riga would be that neither war nor crisis can deter the European Union and its associates, but instead they are doing all they can to exploit the political, economic and social potential of the association agreements. The European Union’s stance should be one of material generosity and critical political solidarity, but should also be guided by transformation-driven stringency that grants no unearned political discounts. The goal must be to improve the chances for both stability and reform across the neighbourhood.

[Meazza]

Mozes li ukratko da prokomentarises za nas neupucene?

[Prospero]

- nastavak eu-iazcije 6 zemalja istočnog partnerstva (tj 3 koje to žele u ovom obliku - gruzije, moldavije i ukrajine) uz različite aranžmane za belorusiju, jermeniju i azerbejdžan, u skladu sa njihovim mogućnostima i željama;

- rusija je drugačija i može takva da ostane, ali ne bi trebala susedima da određuje ko i šta može;

- rusiji bi se moglo izaći u tom smislu u susret u pojedinim oblastima bezbednosnog karaktera (nema nato-a do daljeg ali to ne treba potpuno isključiti u budućnosti)

- sa rusijom se mora sarađivati na nizu specifičnih tema - energetika, globalne krizne tačke, ekonomski kontakti, kontrola naoružanja itd

- eu mora da nađe načina da ima pragmatične odnose sa abhazijom, pridnjestrovljem, krimom, donbasom

- eu ne treba da bazira svoju kratko- i srednjeročnu politiku prema rusiji na iščekivanja kreiranja panevropskih bezbednonih dogovora ali bi trebalo da pretpostavi da će u budućnosti takvi dogovori biti mogući, pa i potezi koje sada čini treba da budu takvi da se sutra mogu ugraditi u eventualni panevropski aranžman. rusija otprilike hoće obrnuto - aranžman odmah, a za to nema uslova jer ne treba 'prodati' ove male zemlje zarad nejasne pogodbe sa rusijom

- kroz odnos sa ovih par zemalja, a prema rusiji, eu treba da demonstrira odlučnost i istrajnost ali ne i agresivnost, i da pokazuje zainteresovanost na dizanje nivoa odnosa.

 

 

govorim o 3. opciji, one dve (zauzdavanje i novi 'koncert') smatraju lošim.

[Meazza]

Hvala puno.