Post by engers on Oct 10, 2007 1:59:14 GMT -5
09 10 2007 By signalling that Russia’s policy on Kosovo is unlikely to change, President Putin could be encouraging Serbia to move away from Euro-Atlantic integration.
By Branka Trivic in Belgrade
Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that he will be heading the candidates’ list of the main pro-Kremlin force, United Russia, in December’s parliamentary elections guarantees the outgoing Russian president a seat in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
It also raises the strong possibility that once he has left the Kremlin after the presidential election in March 2008, Putin will become prime minister and establish a new centre of authority.
Experts argue that, by staying on in power, Putin will be in a position to continue Russia’s increasing assertiveness on the global political stage, thereby reinforcing the already sharp divisions within the EU over Russia and Kosovo. They also believe that Putin’s expected forthcoming premiership is very likely to accelerate Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s drift away from Euro-Atlantic integration.
Polls give United Russia, whose campaign slogan is “Putin’s Plan – Victory for Russia,” a huge lead, with over 50 per cent support, ahead of the elections. Putin is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term as president, and for that reason taking on the premiership after March provides the means for him to stay at the top.
Observers are unanimous that whoever becomes president next year, Putin’s successor “will not be a new tsar”. Even without amending the constitution that gives most of the powers to the president, the real decision-making authority, with Putin as prime minister, will shift from the presidency to the government.
“With Putin’s announcement…the presidential election lost whatever meaning it could have possibly had”, said Tanya Lokshina of the Russian rights group, DEMOS, referring to next year’s race for the presidency. “The Russian Federation will not vote for a president, it will vote for an assistant to Mr Putin, who will remain the boss.
Russia’s relations with Europe, as Putin continues his grip on power, will be deteriorating, says Michael McFaul, a Russia expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Balkan Insight “The tensions we already see between a democratic Europe and an increasingly autocratic Russia are likely to get worse, not better, for the foreseeable future.”
Russian analyst Andrei Pyontkovski agrees that Putin will continue to bully Europe with his leverage of gas and oil supply. “A strong signal of that was the $1.3 billion gas bill presented to Ukraine on October 2, as the [pro-Western] Orange Revolution forces turned out to be the winning side in the election. It was just a reminder of who is the boss in the post-Soviet sphere, Pyontkovski told Balkan Insight.
Meanwhile, in Europe and elsewhere there has been growing recognition of Russia’s re-emergence as a key player on the international stage, and its damaging impact on the EU’s efforts to shape a common foreign policy.
“Europe’s strategic partnership with Russia isn’t working properly”, says Thomas Gomart, an expert with the Paris-based French Institute of International Relations, IFRI, to the US daily, The Christian Science Monitor. “It is clear more and more that Russia is the biggest issue for Europe in the next decade. Moscow is the new player in setting up a multipolar world weighing against the US. What we haven't answered is whether Russia is a partner or a threat."
The Kremlin under Vladimir Putin has made its way back to the summit of international decision-making on almost every issue: from Iran and energy to nuclear proliferation and Kosovo. As a key supplier of natural gas to Europe, it has managed to do so at very little economic risk to itself.
The Kosovo question serves as a good example. The original “script” envisaged agreement among the six-nation Contact Group, which brings together the main western powers and Russia, on securing support for the Ahtisaari plan in the UN Security Council. The plan would not refer to “independence” for Kosovo; and in exchange, Moscow would not apply its veto, even if it might signal its unease by abstaining, rather than voting for the resolution.
But Russia made it increasingly clear during the spring that it would not, after all, go along with the Ahtisaari blueprint. To avoid a damaging row in the Security Council, the Contact Group adopted a new plan envisaging a new, four-month phase of talks on Kosovo’s future under a Troika of international mediators.
According to the West, those talks are due to be completed by December 10; but Russia has warned against setting deadlines.
Should the US and leading European nations recognise Kosovo outside the UN, Russia “will, first, create a great international stir about that, finding allies around the world who will say this is illegitimate. And second, I will not be surprised to see them move towards recognizing three renegade enclaves in Georgia and Moldova using exactly the same unilateral method”, says Michael McFaul.
In case Kosovo’s independence is recognized without UN approval, Belgrade will endorse northern Kosovo’s secession from the rest of the UN-administered territory. Needless to stress, it will do it with Moscow’s backing.
The Serbian Minister of Labour, Rasim Ljajic, in an interview to the Montenegrin daily, Republika, gave the clearest indication yet of such an intention: “It is hard to see northern Kosovo as an integral part of the rest of Kosovo, if unilateral recognition were to be the option. If the international community unilaterally recognised Kosovo, it would basically legalise a de facto division that already exists.”
Jacques Rupnik, a European expert at Sciences Po in Paris, points out that the new Russian track of assertiveness, arm-twisting, and influence-grabbing has changed the Kosovo story.
“The EU was counting on Russia to compromise on Kosovo since Moscow had no reason to object. But Russia has objected, and at very little cost to itself. Europe has been divided on Russia, and so it will be on Kosovo,” Rupnik was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor.
The Russian position during Putin’s anticipated new stint in power will no doubt be even more pro-Serbian than it has been so far, says Piontkovsky, “not out of love or sympathy for Serbia, but out of Putin’s need to confront the West on any issue and under any pretext.”
A senior European diplomat involved with Kosovo admits that “Russia’s hardened position on Kosovo is a wonderful way for Putin to split the EU and to create difficulties for the US.”
One high-level official in the Balkans is relaxed about all this. Kostunica believes Putin’s victories will help the Serbian cause, too.
Like Putin, Kostunica has been sharpening his anti-Western rhetoric: on October 5 he lashed out at the US over its support for Kosovo's independence. "Serbia had won freedom and become a democratic and lawful country…And just as has done so, the United States is trying to split Serbia, contrary to international law."
His party’s mantra about the North Atlantic alliance intending to set up “a NATO state in Kosovo”, being recited ad infinitum by virtually every one of his party’s ministers in the government, was in effect a carefully-studied introduction to a subsequent “departure from the script”: Serbia will not, after all, join NATO. Kostunica may well soon “discover” that the EU for the most part consists of NATO members, and decide on another volte face, turning his back on Brussels.
However, there are those who argue that it would do Kostunica some good to be reminded of the warning, echoed by several Russia experts: Putin’s strength may in future turn out to be more fragile than it looks today. Any country’s leverage built on little else but oil and gas, is vulnerable to changes on the world’s energy markets. Whether Kostunica is concerned about changes to the balance of power in the longer term, is another matter.
Branka Trivic is a correspondent of RFE/RL in Belgrade. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
[ftp]http://www.birn.eu.com/en/107/10/5229/[/ftp]
By Branka Trivic in Belgrade
Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that he will be heading the candidates’ list of the main pro-Kremlin force, United Russia, in December’s parliamentary elections guarantees the outgoing Russian president a seat in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
It also raises the strong possibility that once he has left the Kremlin after the presidential election in March 2008, Putin will become prime minister and establish a new centre of authority.
Experts argue that, by staying on in power, Putin will be in a position to continue Russia’s increasing assertiveness on the global political stage, thereby reinforcing the already sharp divisions within the EU over Russia and Kosovo. They also believe that Putin’s expected forthcoming premiership is very likely to accelerate Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s drift away from Euro-Atlantic integration.
Polls give United Russia, whose campaign slogan is “Putin’s Plan – Victory for Russia,” a huge lead, with over 50 per cent support, ahead of the elections. Putin is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term as president, and for that reason taking on the premiership after March provides the means for him to stay at the top.
Observers are unanimous that whoever becomes president next year, Putin’s successor “will not be a new tsar”. Even without amending the constitution that gives most of the powers to the president, the real decision-making authority, with Putin as prime minister, will shift from the presidency to the government.
“With Putin’s announcement…the presidential election lost whatever meaning it could have possibly had”, said Tanya Lokshina of the Russian rights group, DEMOS, referring to next year’s race for the presidency. “The Russian Federation will not vote for a president, it will vote for an assistant to Mr Putin, who will remain the boss.
Russia’s relations with Europe, as Putin continues his grip on power, will be deteriorating, says Michael McFaul, a Russia expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Balkan Insight “The tensions we already see between a democratic Europe and an increasingly autocratic Russia are likely to get worse, not better, for the foreseeable future.”
Russian analyst Andrei Pyontkovski agrees that Putin will continue to bully Europe with his leverage of gas and oil supply. “A strong signal of that was the $1.3 billion gas bill presented to Ukraine on October 2, as the [pro-Western] Orange Revolution forces turned out to be the winning side in the election. It was just a reminder of who is the boss in the post-Soviet sphere, Pyontkovski told Balkan Insight.
Meanwhile, in Europe and elsewhere there has been growing recognition of Russia’s re-emergence as a key player on the international stage, and its damaging impact on the EU’s efforts to shape a common foreign policy.
“Europe’s strategic partnership with Russia isn’t working properly”, says Thomas Gomart, an expert with the Paris-based French Institute of International Relations, IFRI, to the US daily, The Christian Science Monitor. “It is clear more and more that Russia is the biggest issue for Europe in the next decade. Moscow is the new player in setting up a multipolar world weighing against the US. What we haven't answered is whether Russia is a partner or a threat."
The Kremlin under Vladimir Putin has made its way back to the summit of international decision-making on almost every issue: from Iran and energy to nuclear proliferation and Kosovo. As a key supplier of natural gas to Europe, it has managed to do so at very little economic risk to itself.
The Kosovo question serves as a good example. The original “script” envisaged agreement among the six-nation Contact Group, which brings together the main western powers and Russia, on securing support for the Ahtisaari plan in the UN Security Council. The plan would not refer to “independence” for Kosovo; and in exchange, Moscow would not apply its veto, even if it might signal its unease by abstaining, rather than voting for the resolution.
But Russia made it increasingly clear during the spring that it would not, after all, go along with the Ahtisaari blueprint. To avoid a damaging row in the Security Council, the Contact Group adopted a new plan envisaging a new, four-month phase of talks on Kosovo’s future under a Troika of international mediators.
According to the West, those talks are due to be completed by December 10; but Russia has warned against setting deadlines.
Should the US and leading European nations recognise Kosovo outside the UN, Russia “will, first, create a great international stir about that, finding allies around the world who will say this is illegitimate. And second, I will not be surprised to see them move towards recognizing three renegade enclaves in Georgia and Moldova using exactly the same unilateral method”, says Michael McFaul.
In case Kosovo’s independence is recognized without UN approval, Belgrade will endorse northern Kosovo’s secession from the rest of the UN-administered territory. Needless to stress, it will do it with Moscow’s backing.
The Serbian Minister of Labour, Rasim Ljajic, in an interview to the Montenegrin daily, Republika, gave the clearest indication yet of such an intention: “It is hard to see northern Kosovo as an integral part of the rest of Kosovo, if unilateral recognition were to be the option. If the international community unilaterally recognised Kosovo, it would basically legalise a de facto division that already exists.”
Jacques Rupnik, a European expert at Sciences Po in Paris, points out that the new Russian track of assertiveness, arm-twisting, and influence-grabbing has changed the Kosovo story.
“The EU was counting on Russia to compromise on Kosovo since Moscow had no reason to object. But Russia has objected, and at very little cost to itself. Europe has been divided on Russia, and so it will be on Kosovo,” Rupnik was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor.
The Russian position during Putin’s anticipated new stint in power will no doubt be even more pro-Serbian than it has been so far, says Piontkovsky, “not out of love or sympathy for Serbia, but out of Putin’s need to confront the West on any issue and under any pretext.”
A senior European diplomat involved with Kosovo admits that “Russia’s hardened position on Kosovo is a wonderful way for Putin to split the EU and to create difficulties for the US.”
One high-level official in the Balkans is relaxed about all this. Kostunica believes Putin’s victories will help the Serbian cause, too.
Like Putin, Kostunica has been sharpening his anti-Western rhetoric: on October 5 he lashed out at the US over its support for Kosovo's independence. "Serbia had won freedom and become a democratic and lawful country…And just as has done so, the United States is trying to split Serbia, contrary to international law."
His party’s mantra about the North Atlantic alliance intending to set up “a NATO state in Kosovo”, being recited ad infinitum by virtually every one of his party’s ministers in the government, was in effect a carefully-studied introduction to a subsequent “departure from the script”: Serbia will not, after all, join NATO. Kostunica may well soon “discover” that the EU for the most part consists of NATO members, and decide on another volte face, turning his back on Brussels.
However, there are those who argue that it would do Kostunica some good to be reminded of the warning, echoed by several Russia experts: Putin’s strength may in future turn out to be more fragile than it looks today. Any country’s leverage built on little else but oil and gas, is vulnerable to changes on the world’s energy markets. Whether Kostunica is concerned about changes to the balance of power in the longer term, is another matter.
Branka Trivic is a correspondent of RFE/RL in Belgrade. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
[ftp]http://www.birn.eu.com/en/107/10/5229/[/ftp]