Europe’s Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, made her first official visits to the South Caucusus states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday and Friday of last week. On this trip she made the comment, “2006 should be the year that takes our partnership up a gear”. And well she might, for without anyone really noticing (let’s be honest – how many of us were aware of the ongoing ‘frozen conflict’ in Nagorno-Karabakh) the Black Sea region is rapidly growing in prominence on the political radars of European nations and of the EU.
The key to this rise in awareness is energy. The Ukraine-Russia energy dispute that severely hampered European gas supplies at the beginning of the year sharpened awareness of Europe’s dependence on Russia for our energy. 25.2% of our total gas supply comes via the Ukraine. After Russia turned off the taps during the pricing dispute in January, Hungary and Poland saw a 40% drop in supply as the Ukrainians began to siphon off gas pipelined to Europe. Less than a month later, in what must be seen as suspicious circumstances, a transit pipeline in Georgia exploded. Moscow blamed terrorists. Tbilisi blamed Moscow.
And so the fear begins to rise. We are being dragged closer to unstable regions by the need of other European nations to lessen their reliance on Russia and Central Asia for their energy supplies. In May 2005 the Caspian oil pipeline opened, tapping into one of the world’s last unlocked reserves – in the Caspian Sea region – and transporting it from Baku through Tbilisi to Ceyhan in Turkey, where it is shipped across the Black Sea to southern Europe. However, in the Georgian enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh between the Azeri and Armenian borders, unstable ‘frozen conflicts’ exist that threaten the safety of this line of supply.
And energy is not the extent of Europe’s interest in the region. If Romania and Bulgaria join the EU in 2007-8 then Europe’s new frontier will impact on what Simon Tisdall in the Guardian described as ‘the rumbling underbelly of Russia’s collapsed empire’. Even closer than this sea border though, Romanian/Bulgarian expansion will provide the EU with a 450km land border with the nation of Moldova, where another former conflict rumbles on with the breakaway republic of Trans-Dniester (Transniestria). The President of Romania, Traian Bacescu, has voiced the concerns “The Black Sea region has become an area for trafficking in people, in drugs and weapons”, he has said. Breakaway Republics are not bound by international law, and lacking strong economies they are often are easy targets for trans-national crime. Whilst an uneasy peace remains in place in all of these conflicts (and depending on which source you read it appears likely to stay), examples of former Soviet states degenerating into chaos are not hard to find and it is in the EUs interest to move aggressively into resolving the situations prior to any further thoughts of expansion. The last thing the European Union needs is to border the new Chechnya.
That may sound alarmist, and indeed might be – as I have said, sources differ on their predictions about the instability of the frozen conflicts – but the fact remains that the EU is having to face up to the prospect of failed states not only controlling large aspects of its energy supply but also being on its very doorstep. The primary obstacle to resolving them, and the Elephant in the room that Europe is assiduously trying to ignore when considering its geopolitical position, is Russia.
A Report of the German Marshall Fund for the 2004 Nato summit defines the Russian policy paradigm where the frozen conflicts are concerned as ‘controlled instability’. Russia has a stake in continual instability in the region as it helps to perpetuate Russian military presence, prevents fringe former CIS nations becoming too tightly tied with the west and allows them greater economic leverage, particularly in terms of stable energy supply. Moscow has conveyed Russian citizenship and visa privileges onto the breakaway republics in Georgia, although Tbilisi has since approved dual citizenship as a fait accompli. Russia-supplied weapons are in evidence in nearly all of the frozen conflicts zones and in Moldova, Putin’s top aide attempted to negotiate a ‘federal’ settlement to the Transniestria question that would have ensured completed Russian political control of Moldova. These are just some examples of the Russia’s involvement in perpetuating the unstable status quo in the South Caucasus.
So what does this mean? Well for the moment all is quiet on the Eastern Front. There is also a view that the Russian gas price hike that poleaxed the Ukraine in January is evidence that Russia is surrendering their involvement in the former Soviet States (by severing ties of economic support, in this case). However, there is no question that Moscow’s continued involvement in the conflicts in Georgia, Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh is prolonging regional unrest. Even in Ukraine, which many people now take for granted, Russia is continuing to generate instability. In direct consequence of the gas crisis in January parliament sacked the Ukrainian government and the name of Viktor Yanukovych – Russia’s favourite in the contested election in winter 2004 – has been mentioned for a possible return to power. European Neighbourhood Policy has so far failed to effectively deal with the problems that these conflicts pose and the root cause of this is the lack of a coherent strategy for dealing with Russian machinations in the region. Unwillingness to do anything that might rouse the ire of the Russian Bear has led to a negligent passivity that can no longer be sustained.
If Europe is to pull us into the South Caucasus region, both through expansion and through energy reliance, then it must approach it swiftly and resolutely. No longer can we hold back and pander to Moscow’s interest in retaining regional instability to strengthen its sphere of influence. Instead we must put the resolution of the frozen conflicts at the centre of EU-Russia policy in the region. Both the US and the EU have so far acted with weak trepidation to Georgia’s January 2005 announcement to the Council of Europe of a peace plan for dealing with the South Ossetia crisis. Tbilisi is willing to compromise, which means that the West has leverage against Russia in resolving this conflict. It is a small start, but it is a start, and not one that we should pass up. South Ossetia is probably the easiest conflict to solve, but there is also argument that the EU could have more success than the Minsk Group (of France, Russia and the US) in resolving the dispute in Nagorno-Karabakh. The stakes for these games of conflict resolution are high. At risk is an alternative source of oil that would lessen Europe’s reliance both on Russia and on Central Asia. At risk also is the stability of our neighbours. The prospect looms that if the EU fails then their reckless expansive drive will bring us to a situation where we border Chechnya-esque regions of guerrilla conflict. The conflicts cannot remain frozen forever – if we are to be drawn into the region by the needs of Europe, then Europe must act with resolution to state our interests in achieving stability and to follow them through. Otherwise we will be left with the ice cracking beneath our feet, too committed to turn back to dry land.