Are we really doing the right thing now, Nicolas?
So it seems as if the EU – or more specifically leaders of that bloc of European countries aiming to improve the conditions of European citizens – have suffered another stroke of collective amnesia.
Gathering in Brussels earlier this week (1 September) leaders of the bloc’s 27 member states and most of the Union’s foreign ministers (with the exception of Denmark’s Per Stig Møller who stayed home after falling on his bicycle) – a total of 53 senior politician – managed, in just over three hours, to waffle together some sort of document ‘threatening’ to postpone further talks with Russia if that country does not withdraw its troops from Georgia.
Clearly, there was no need to hide that the EU’s relations with Russia has, also before the Georgia crisis, been strained for quite a while so there was no other options for the bloc but to get straight to point and say, albeit slightly hidden down in its conclusions, that this is about energy more than anything else. What they didn’t say clearly though, but what they most likely said behind closed doors would have been something along the lines of this: “What we really fear is that Russia will do to others and that we won’t get energy from those other countries either…”
Although EU leaders obviously would like to keep the gas and oil pipelines from Russia open, what they really fear is that Dmitry Medvedev and Vladmir Putin, president and president (sorry, prime minister) of Russia, will use their willingness to use violence to exhert control in their backyard to control other countries; energy resources. Countries such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, but let’s not forget Iran, Iraq and other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and Africa.
Although leaders attending the summit were right in that, perhaps, Russia was a bit heavy-handed in its efforts to, according to the Russians, “proctecting its own citizens”, it seems as there has been some collective failure, some sort of amnesia to recollect things as they happened. Led by Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, other EU leaders have followed in declaring their support and willingness to help reconstruct Georgia – clearly forgetting that it was actually Georgian forces that attacked South Ossetia first. An event that few, or none, EU leaders commented on – most likely because they were all away on their summer break.
But by following Bildt’s lead (a Russia-basher from a country that has declared that it has no interest in fossil fuels and will get all its energy needs from renewable in a few years) and agreeing on not condemning Georgia, too, they have left themselves with fewer option for dealing with Russia in future. Not only on matters concerning energy, but also on matters concerning human rights and sovereignty.
