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11. Security of Europe's Gas Supply: EU Vulnerability

Author:
Andrew Macintosh
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Clearly the natural gas market is experiencing considerable change: a second Ukraine-Russia gas crisis, a collapse in the price of natural gas, a new European natural gas security of supply regulation and the mass production of natural gas from unconventional sources in the US as a result of technological advancements, which could yet have an impact on the EU. This Policy Brief is a summation of the European Union's vulnerability to natural gas supply security risks.
Topic:
Security and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

12. Illusion of Power: Russia after the South Caucasus Battle

Author:
Stanislav Secrieru
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The war in the South Caucasus sent shockwaves throughout the post-Soviet world, European capitals and across the Atlantic, making more urgent the demand for a re-evaluation of policies towards Russia. The projection of hard power in Georgia generated a number of unintended consequences for the Russian state. The crisis and war unveiled many of Russia's weaknesses and vulnerabilities across four crucial dimensions: the military, the 'power vertical' and federalism, the economy and Russia's international position. This paper aims at reassessing Russia's military, political, economic and diplomatic might after the battle in the South Caucasus. The research concludes with proposals for a new Western strategy on Russia and the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood which would ensure an undivided and sustainable European order.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

13. Russia and its 'New Security Architecture' in Europe: A Critical Examination of the Concept

Author:
Andrey S. Makarychev
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The paper first summarises Russia's present critique of the international security architecture and its aspiration to build something new and better. The author then presents a matrix of four models of international society as a framework within which to try and discern what Russia may be seeking. While it is clear that Russia objects to one of these models, that of a unipolar US-led world, its current foreign policy discourse and actions offer no clear guidance as to what its aims are in this regard, as there are confusions and contradictions in the different elements of official Russian discourse.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and International Security
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

14. Bilateral Disputes between EU Member States and Russia

Author:
Mathias Roth
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Over the past years, a series of bilateral disputes between EU member states and Moscow have significantly affected EU–Russian relations and exposed sharp internal divisions over the EU's approach towards Russia. Despite their potential for having a highly disruptive impact on EU foreign policy, the EU still lacks a consensus on how to handle bilateral disputes. This paper employs a case-study approach to provide an in-depth analysis of selected disputes and reviews several questions of importance for the coherence of EU policy towards Russia: What kinds of issues are at the centre of bilateral disputes? What strategies do member states adopt to resolve them? Under what circumstances are disputes raised to the EU level? The paper concludes that the scope of 'EU solidarity' in bilateral disputes remains deeply contested and draws on insights from the case studies to propose a set of guidelines for the EU's approach to bilateral disputes.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Moscow

15. The Case for a Gas Transit Consortium in Ukraine: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Author:
Michael Emerson and Elena Gnedina
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The 2009 gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia has led to a severe drop in Russian gas supplies to some EU member states. The dispute has once again shown that the status quo is defective and unsustainable as a policy. This Policy Brief argues that – beyond ad hoc temporary measures, such as the monitoring by EU experts agreed on January 12th and the 2009-10 price agreement apparently reached on January 18th – the problem needs a comprehensive and robust solution. This would be a gas transit consortium, bringing all major stakeholders – Gazprom, Naftohaz, one or a few European energy companies, and the international financial institutions – to jointly manage the trans-Ukrainian trunk pipeline. The consortium agreement would be underwritten politic ally and legally by a tripartite treaty to be ratified by the EU, Russia and Ukraine. The consortium should be bound by European standards of transparency, corporate governance and accounting in order to tackle the major problem – the lack of trust – in the EU- Ukraine-Russia energy triangle.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

16. Optimisation of Central Asian and Eurasian Trans-Continental Land Transport Corridors

Author:
Michael Emerson and Evgeny Vinokurov
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
There is at present an overlapping but inadequately coordinated combination of strategic trans-continental transport corridors or axes stretching across the Eurasian landmass, centred on or around Central Asia. There are three such initiatives - from the EU, China and the Asian Development Bank, and the Eurasian Economic Community. This paper reviews these several strategic transport maps, and makes proposals for their coordination and rationalisation. So far the EU Central Asia strategy has not paid much attention to these questions. However the EU's own initiatives (the Pan-European Axes and the TRACECA programme) are in need of updating and revision to take into account major investments being made by other parties. In particular the case is made for a 'Central Eurasian Corridor' for rail and road that would reach from Central Europe across Ukraine and Southern Russia into West Kazakhstan, and thence to the East Kazakh border with China, thus joining up with and completing the West China-West Europe corridor promoted by the Asian Development Bank. There should also be a North-South corridor that would cross over this Central Eurasian Corridor in West Kazakhstan and lead south to the Middle East and South Asia. These adaptations of existing plans could become an exemplary case of cooperation between Central Asia and all the major economic powers of the Eurasian landmass.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan

17. The EU Strategy for Central Asia says 'security'. Does this include Security Sector Reform?

Author:
Jos Boonstra
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Central Asia faces a broad range of security challenges. Due to the region's position at the crossroads between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea it is confronted with a range of trans-national issues such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism. Central Asia also encounters specific regional threats including scarcity of water resources for generating power and irrigation purposes, which is currently causing tension. On a national level the five Central Asian republics face the threat of instability due to bad governance and the harsh impact of the economic crisis.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Europe, Iran, and Central Asia

18. Russia in Central Asia: Old History, New Challenges?

Author:
Marlène Laruelle
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Russia is a power unlike others in Central Asia, given its role as the region's former coloniser, which started in the 19th century and even in the 18th for some of the northern parts of Kazakhstan. This legacy has its positive and negative aspects: it has been positive insofar as it has involved a long period of Russo–Central Asian cohabitation that has given rise to a common feeling of belonging to the same 'civilisation'; it has been negative insofar as it has accrued all the political resentment and cultural misinterpretations of the coloniser–colonised relationship. Russian–Central Asian relations are therefore complex, with each of the actors having a highly emotional perception of its relation to the other.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and Asia

19. Rebranding Russia: Norms, Politics and Power

Author:
Andrey Makarychev
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This working paper argues that Russia is in the process of re-branding itself internationally, with a variety of normative arguments increasingly creeping into its wider international discourse. By appealing to norms, Russia tries to reformulate the key messages it sends to the world and implant the concept of its power worldwide. Yet given that Russia's normative messages are often met with scarce enthusiasm in Europe, it is of utmost importance to uncover how the normative segment in Russian foreign policy is perceived, evaluated and debated both inside Russia and elsewhere. Within this framework, this paper focuses on a set of case studies highlighting the normative and non-normative dimensions of Russian foreign policy. These include Russia-EU transborder cooperation, Moscow's policies towards Estonia, Poland, Ukraine/Georgia and the UK, Russian strategies in the 'war on terror' and energy issues.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United Kingdom, Europe, Ukraine, Asia, Poland, Moscow, Estonia, and Georgia

20. The European Union as a Normative Foreign Policy Actor

Author:
Nathalie Tocci
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This is the second in a series of papers from a new project entitled “Who is a normative foreign policy actor? The European Union and its Global Partners”. The first paper – entitled Profiling Normative Foreign Policy: The European Union and its Global Partners, by Nathalie Tocci, CEPS Working Document No. 279, December 2007 – set out the conceptual framework for exploring this question. The present paper constitutes one of several case studies applying this framework to the behaviour of the European Union, whereas the others to follow concern China, India, Russia and the United States. A normative foreign policy is rigorously defined as one that is normative according to the goals set, the means employed and the results obtained. Each of these studies explores eight actual case examples of foreign policy behaviour, selected in order to illustrate four alternative paradigms of foreign policy behaviour – the normative, the realpolitik, the imperialistic and the status quo. For each of these four paradigms, there are two examples of EU foreign policy, one demonstrating intended consequences and the other, unintended effects. The fact that examples can be found that fit all of these different types shows the importance of 'conditioning factors', which relate to the internal interests and capabilities of the EU as a foreign policy actor as well as the external context in which other major actors may be at work.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and India