The Euro-Russia row as a result of an overlap between two economic unions: lessons for a multipolar world in the wake

The Euro-Russia row as a result of an overlap between two economic unions: lessons for a multipolar world in the wake

The Euro-BRICS project firmly believes that the emergence of a multipolar world is a heavy trend that should be welcome and accompanied rather than feared and contained.

Indeed LEAP bases its work on an original prospective method – political anticipation – which, among other features, intends to help detect unavoidable trends, identify future-bearer paths amidst these trends and define adaptation strategies for systems to find their way through these positive futures. One of our predicates is that containing heavy trends leads to violence, whether economic, social or military.

The Ukrainian crisis is understood by LEAP and the Euro-BRICS project as a heavy-trend breaker, disrupting the peaceful and organised emergence of the multipolar world and thrusting Europe and the planet towards a conflictual polarisation between West and East, former global leaders and emerging powers, and ultimately US and China.

For this reason LEAP and the Euro-BRICS project are very much concerned to understand the dynamics behind this crisis. Thus a first online discussion was held in May among its Euro-BRICS network of academics with two main outcomes :

• the release of a Joint Declaration aimed at promoting the ideas of 1/ acknowledging shared responsibilities between Europe and Russia, 2/ as a prerequisite to resume constructive talks both between Europeans and Russians, and between pro-Europeans and pro-Russians in Ukraine, 3/ using the Euro-BRICS framework as a diplomatic facilitator (see our Joint Statement’s three proposals)

• the understanding of the Euro-Russia row over Ukraine as a result of an overlap between two economic unions and the need to dig further into this characteristic of the Ukrainian crisis

• The Ukrainian crisis is born from the catastrophic handling of free-trade talks between Ukraine and Russia on the one hand, and Ukraine and Europe on the other. The simultaneous double offer turned into an impossible choice for Ukraine for two reasons:

• the European deal was exclusive : if Ukraine signed with Europe, it was no longer allowed to sign  with Russia

• in November 2013, Europe rejected Ukraine’s request for trilateral talks (Ukraine, EU and Russia) in order to find the ways to make both deals compatible and beneficial to all parties.

This attitude on the part of Europe reveals a very strong feature of this crisis : it is a territorial row between two neighbours. On the one hand, there is the European Union, a free-trade area engaged in a questionable process of never-ending extension. On the other hand, there is Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union project, all of a sudden competing with the latter.

All the more since the Russian offer obviously became a true challenger as proved by a number of candidate countries’ decision to pick the Russian deal rather than the European one. Indeed, in the months before the eruption of the Ukrainian crisis, other countries which had been offered both deals chose the Russian one, to Europe’s greatest dismay and surprise: Armenia especially, and Belarus in the middle of the Ukrainian crisis.

And the fact is that Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union is building on the basis, not only of former USSR, but also of the Community of Independent States voluntarily co-created after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Europe’s attempt to divert Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova from this course is inevitably a conflict-builder in which the rights of three parties at least are being questioned:

• The Europeans’ right to free-determination as regards the limits of their union is being ignored (it has been repeatedly asked by a large amount of civil and political players that any further enlargement be submitted to referendum)

• The Ukrainians’ right to remain united and independent thanks to balanced and synergetic partnerships with both its neighbours (given the dual nature of Ukraine, Europe’s pushing for an exclusive deal inevitably leads to either division or civil war)

• The Russians’ right to create the conditions of their security and prosperity through a European-style integration of their geographical, historical and cultural neighbourhood.

Of course, no one should be naive here. It is legitimate that the development of a Russia-centered economic union raises concerns on the part of bordering neighbours – whether Europe or China by the way. But the right of Russia to get organised along these lines needs to be asserted for constructive talks to surround this evolution in order to reach a peace-bearing and mutually beneficial configuration.

The multipolar world is made of similar integrated regions and the challenge ahead of us is to recognize the right of every region to exist and to build the tools of its sustainability, but also the necessity to invent the global framework capable of ensuring the peaceful coexistence of these processes. Major questions weigh indeed, such as : How to set the limits of each region ? Should these limits include buffer-zones (such as Ukraine should have remained), in which cases and why ? How to organise peaceful trans-regional relations ? Shouldn’t free-trade agreements be reserved to intra-regional economic relations, leaving evolving and negotiable trade-facilitation accords regulate trans-regional economic relations ? Of what use can be the organisations of the former international system (WTO namely, which needs to deeply reconsider the principles of the XXIst century global economic system) ?…

The Ukrainian crisis, if unsolved properly, is a very bad omen for future regional unions’ interactions. How about the potential overlap between Mercosur and NAFTA ? NAFTA and the EU ? etc… Is the world blindly heading to a pre-WWI situation, only worldwide ? Or can Europe and Russia, together with the main actors of the emerging multipolar world – the BRICS, build on their common painful experience of History to avoid a new tragic scenario?

It is a pity that the founder of the regional integration method, Europe, hasn’t yet been able to anticipate, and at least handle rationally, this inevitable confrontation. Today it belongs to Europe and the BRICS to think together about the principles and tools of a smoothly articulated multipolar world respecting every region’s right to its economic (and political) union. The BRICS on their own can of course work on these themes but as long as at least one half of the Western world (Europe) doesn’t agree to new rules and principles, tensions will grow between old and new global powers.

Оригинал публикации: http://www.leap2020.net/euro-brics/2014/09/05/the-euro-russia-row-as-a-result-of-an-overlap-between-two-economic-unions-lessons-for-a-multipolar-world-in-the-wake/?lang=en