PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
Contacts
Address 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 adminponars@gwu.edu 202.994.5915
NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • COVID-19 in Eurasia: PONARS Eurasia Policy Perspectives

    View
  • Preparing for the Parliamentary Elections of 2021: Russian Politics and Society (Gel’man, Lankina, Semenov, Smyth, and more)

    View
  • Russians supported Putin’s moves in Crimea in 2014. Here’s what’s different in 2021

    View
  • Putin’s Rules of the Game: The Pitfalls of Russia’s New Constitution

    View
  • In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • Music and Politics in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2021] April 12, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Gorbachev about the dynamic music scene in contemporary Russia, and how free Russian musicians are to make political statements.
  • How is the Russian Government Coping with Rising Food Prices? [Lipman Series 2021] March 15, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
  • The Communist Party of the Russian Federation: More Than Just Systemic Opposition? [Lipman Series 2021] March 5, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Felix Light and Nikolay Petrov about the contemporary Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including the divisions between its leadership and membership, its attitude toward Alexei Navalny, and why it might be more than just "systemic" opposition after all.
  • Internet Resources: Civic Communication and State Surveillance [Lipman Series 2021] February 16, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Andrei Soldatov and Tanya Lokot about the role of the internet in contemporary Russian politics, including both as a tool of the Russian opposition and as an instrument of the increasingly repressive Russian regime.
  • The Rise of Alexei Navalny's Political Stature and Mass Protest in Russia [Lipman Series 2021] February 1, 2021
    In the first PONARS Eurasia Podcast of 2021, Maria Lipman chats with Greg Yudin about the current protests taking place in Russia, and what Alexei Navalny's growing popular support means for the Putin regime.
  • Russian Social Policy in the COVID-19 Era [Lipman Series 2020] December 21, 2020
    In 2020’s final episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sarah Wilson Sokhey and Ella Paneyakh to discuss Russian social policy in the COVID-19 era, and public perception of Russia’s overall pandemic response.
  • Conscious Parenting Practices in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2020] December 10, 2020
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Julia Yuzbasheva and Maria Danilova to learn more about the proliferation of "conscious parenting" practices in contemporary Russian society.
  • The Transformation of Belarussian Society [Lipman Series 2020] November 11, 2020
    In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Masha Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe about the long-term and short-term factors that led up to the current protests in Belarus, and the ongoing transformation of Belarussian society.
  • Russian Lawmakers Adjust National Legislation to the Revised Constitutional Framework [Lipman Series 2020] October 26, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about ongoing changes to Russia’s national legislation based on the recently revised constitutional framework, and what these changes portend for the 2021 Duma election.
  • Russia's Regional Elections [Lipman Series 2020] September 25, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Graeme Robertson and Konstantin Gaaze about Russia’s September 13 regional elections and whether or not the Kremlin should be worried about upcoming Duma elections.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Euro-Expert Insight: No Change in Germany’s Russia Policy; But New Nuances toward Ukraine

  • September 19, 2013
  • Andrey Makarychev

On the eve of the September 22, 2013 parliamentary elections in Germany, I asked some German colleagues whether the already-finished campaign had any effect on German’s foreign policy, particularly regarding Russia and Eastern Europe.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”1670″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”183″,”style”:”width: 183px; height: 183px; float: left; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”183″}}]]Barbara von Freitag, adviser to German MP Andreas Schockenhoff, thinks that,  unfortunately, “after an intense debate on relations with Russia throughout the year, this electoral campaign had no foreign policy focus at all. All major foreign policy issues were evaded, including Ostpolitik. Therefore, the election debate had no effect on the foreign policy of Germany. Even with Russia back in world diplomacy there is no debate on how to use the new dynamics for signing new Association Agreements, developing Eastern Partnerships, or promoting conflict resolution in the common neighborhood. Füle’s speech on Russian pressure on Eastern Partnership countries went completely unnoticed in German media.” (Štefan Füle is the EU Commissioner for enlargement and neighborhood policies.)

Stefan Meister, European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, deems that “the campaign had at least one effect: Merkel became more critical and consistent about Putin’s Russia – something than would not have been possible without public pressure. Yet for Merkel (like for Obama) being more consequent on human right issues toward Russia brings little benefit, if any. By the same token, all foreign policy issues played only a limited role in the campaign – even Syria was not a big issue, let alone Russia.”

Joerg Forbrig, Director of the Fund for Belarus Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, avers that “not surprisingly, and much as would be the case in any other country, it is primarily domestic and EU issues dominated the election campaign in Germany. By contrast, relationships with Russia did not figure at all in the debates, although most major parties make reference to Russia in their detailed programmes. The formulations there also shed some light on how individual parties, if ending up forming the new government, would handle German-Russian relations. Thus, the CDU stresses that the ‘depth and breadth of these relations depends on the extent to which Russia lives up to its international commitments to the rule of law and democratic standards,’ while the SPD formulates vaguely a ‘policy that combines economic co-operation, political and societal dialog in a comprehensive modernisation partnership.’ The Greens submerge Russia with Europe's neighbourhood to the East and South where they demand that the EU should support democratic reforms and human rights, supported by a liberalisation of visa regimes. The FDP is perhaps most critical in ‘observing limitations of civic rights by the Russian government and justice system’ and stresses that ‘co-operation with Russia is not in contradiction with an open and critical dialogue.’"

“These nuances,” Forbrig continues, “will likely become more pronounced as parties, depending on the result of elections and coalition talks, will be in government or opposition. Impulses for political actors to define their positions more clearly will likely stem from a number of sources. One, for several months now, Germany has seen a heated debate about its foreign policy strategy. The two broad poles of this debate are an explicit commitment to a value-based foreign policy on the one hand, and a sort of Realpolitik that puts German economic interests above all. The latter position appears to weaken, and the former to strengthen, with likely effects for German-Russian relations. Two, an important task for the next government will be initiatives to rebuild Europe in a way that makes the EU more functional and sustainable. An item of this agenda is further enlargement and engagement with the EU neighbourhood, both South and East. Here, Russian plans for Eurasian integration are on a direct collision course with the European perspective for Eastern neighbours. The pressure that is increasingly exerted on its near abroad by the Kremlin will likely force Brussels, and Berlin with it, to become more proactive. Three, while Russia is an important trade partner for Germany, it has for years hovered around 4 percent of German foreign trade (on par with countries like Belgium or Poland). Even worse, prospects for stronger economic ties are dim. This has been acknowledged by now by the German political class, with exceptions perhaps, and lowered the threshold for voicing criticism of Russia, its domestic developments, treatment of neighbours, and conduct on the global stage.”

Yet Ukraine was a different case in the campaign, as Inna Melnykovska, University of Giessen/Freie Universität Berlin, opined, “Initially, Berlin’s Ostpolitik did not figure high in the pre-election debates in Germany and was limited to Russia. The parties’ visions of future Ostpolitik were limited to the scenarios of German relations with Russia. Overall, all parties ignored the frozen situation in Russia-EU relations and pled for enhanced cooperation between two countries, as well as favored increased Russian involvement in the existing global governance structures. The concentration of German parties’ campaigns on Russia warmed up the traditional Ukrainian perception of German Ostpolitik as such that is based on geopolitical considerations and that follows a ‘Russia first, Ukraine second’ approach.”

Melnykovska continued, saying that the upcoming Eastern Partnership Summit of the EU in Vilnius made Berlin broaden the scope of its Ostpolitik. Especially topical were debates on prospects of the Association Agreement (AA) between the EU and Ukraine. The rhetoric of German officials on the readiness of Ukrainian authorities to sign the AA was values-loaded, with reforms in Ukraine’s juridical system as the key condition where the German government saw no room for compromise. Thereby, Tymoshenko’s case was highlighted as symbolic for selective justice in Ukraine. However, instead of holding on to Tymoshenko’s case as a reason not to sign the AA with Ukraine (as it was at the NATO Bucharest summit in 2008 when Germany practically vetoed NATO’s Membership Action Plan for Ukraine due to the democratic deficits of Kuchma’s regime), this time the German government seemed to put efforts to solve Tymoshenko’s issue and enable the signature of the AA. During his visit to Kyiv, the foreign minister of Germany, Guido Westerwelle, officially offered Ukrainian authorities a solution: Tymoshenko should be allowed to have adequate medical treatment in Berlin’s Charite hospital. Ukrainian officials did not follow through on this offer immediately, though many Ukrainian observers regard this solution as most acceptable for president Yanukovych and thus most probable to happen.

Berlin’s values-loaded Ostpolitik suffers from low credibility. Ukrainian authorities interpret the values-loaded rhetoric as such that is more directed to the German population than to Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian officials regard Germany (apart from Poland) as a strong supporter of the AA with Ukraine. Some Ukrainian observers even speculate that leaving Tymoshenko’s case unsolved a few weeks before the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius is a strategic maneuver, as Ukrainian authorities expect Berlin to be more ready to compromise and be satisfied with any sign of reform progress after the parliamentary elections in Germany are hold. Russia’s recent trade wars against Ukraine, Moldova, and Latvia, as well as Russia’s pressure on Armenia, are expected to further support German (and the EU’s) readiness to compromise values for the sake of geopolitical considerations.

Despite the pro-presidential parliamentary majority, the Ukrainian government has only recently pressed the bulk of the pro-EU laws necessary to sign the AA through the Ukrainian parliament. Still, the most sensitive issues to Yanukovych’s regime, a law establishing a prosecutor's office as well as new laws on the police and on an independent bureau of investigation, are not (yet) discussed in the parliament. Ukrainian authorities provided some signs of reform progress to European politicians, possibly calculating that these signs might be enough to sign the AA in the face of Russia’s geopolitical pressure. Furthermore, the fast-track adoption of pro-EU legislature does not guarantee that Ukraine’s practice of making declaration without implementation could be eliminated. Ukrainian authorities could keep the room for maneuver even after the AA would be potentially signed.

Melnikovska's analysis concludes that Berlin’s “beyond-Russia values-loaded Ostpolitik” has a chance to became more credible and eventually more effective only if it is long-term and not limited to election campaigning.

Andrey Makarychev is a professor at the Institute of Government and Politics, University of Tartu, blogging for PONARS Eurasia on the Russia-EU neighborhood.

Andrey Makarychev
Andrey Makarychev
Website | + posts
Visiting Professor

Affiliation

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia

Links

University of Tartu (Bio)

Expertise

Russian Foreign and Security Policies, EU-Russian Relations, Foreign Policy Discourses, Regionalism and Federalism
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    The Minsk–Khabarovsk nexus: Ethical, performative, corporeal
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Twigg: I worry about whether or not people are going to be willing to take Sputnik V in Russia
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Culture as an Instrument
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    The Coronavirus and the Future of Liberalism
Related Topics
  • EU
  • Makarychev
  • Russia
Previous Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

New Policy Memo: A New Explanation for Russian Foreign Policy

  • September 19, 2013
  • Kimberly Marten
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

New Policy Memo: From a Normal Country to Normal Authoritarianism

  • September 19, 2013
  • Nikolay Petrov
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Непереломный момент: Смена Конституции

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 6, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Кейс Фургала и три мифа режима

  • Kirill Rogov
  • August 5, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.