Massimiliano Bonne
1. What kind of relationship would you like to see between Russia and Latvia? Especially between Russian authorities and Latvia’s ethnic Russians (citizens and non-citizens)?
2. Has this view changed because of Ukraine?
3. Why is the EU so much more comfortable with technocracy than strategy?
Tatjana Zdanoka, MEP
By my opinion, the European Union can and should be a strong geopolitical player only on the basis of strategic partnership relations with Russia. The role of Latvia could be extremely important, making bridges between EU and Russia. Since we, people of Latvia, are the ones who know best Russia as a part of our own identity.
Unfortunately, the role of Baltic states, and Latvia in particular, is the opposite one. Our politicians belonging to leading political forces are playing the role of permanent provocateurs to our eastern neighbor with which the EU needs to be a faithful partner. While claiming that the EU “should speak one voice with Russia” they are in fact pushing the EU train in opposite direction.
One of the instruments in constructing the new “iron curtain” between EU and Russia was the Eastern Partnership program launched in 2008. The Ukraine, Moldova and the Caucasus republics were placed in a situation to choose between the EU and Russia, instead of talking of strategic cooperation within the whole continent.
Ethnic Russians living in Russia and other European countries are feeling growing russophobia which, by my opinion, became a legal phobia in the European Union in difference from racism, anti-Semitism and islamophobia. The numerous examples of double standards used when speaking on the rights of Russian minority in European countries comparing with the rights of all other ethnic and linguistic minorities became well-known.
I could imagine what could be a reaction of the EU institutions if a state like Belarus or Russia would have fifth part of residents deprived of citizenship and, consequently, of full scope of the citizen’s rights. But my country, the Republic of Latvia, has successfully joined the EU in 2004 bearing on the board the 450.000 people deprived of citizenship. In the situation when the population of the country at that moment was 2.3 billion the proportion of the stateless person was extremely high. The so called Latvian non-citizens (or “aliens”, as it is written in their Latvian passports) are deprived of almost all other forms of social participation – they cannot either vote at any kind of the elections or their opinion neither is taken into consideration while deciding questions crucial for this social group. The second country which has the similar category of “aliens” is the neighboring Estonia. Together Latvia and Estonia have now about half a million of stateless persons.
The majority of Latvian and Estonian stateless population are ethnic Russians. So the problems of these persons were treated by the EU mostly from the point of view of competing with Russia for the influence in the Baltic region. The feelings and needs of the stateless population of Baltic States didn’t have any value in that game for regional dominance.
The solution of dividing people into citizens and “non-citizens” was purely political in nature. From a legal point of view another way was also possible – the neighbouring country of Lithuania at the moment its independence was restored adopted the “zero option” granting citizenship rights to all its residents.
Why was the Latvian approach to the local Russian minority so radical? The end of the Cold war which led to national independence for the Baltic countries brought up the issue of guilt for the communist repressions of the 40s and early 50s, as well guilt for the discomfort caused by changes in ethnic proportions (during the First World War and the first independence period the share of ethnic minorities dropped from 40% in 1914 to 23% in 1935 but industrial development of Soviet Latvia was performed by attracting labor from other territories of the USSR, and the Russian-speaking minority reached 40% of the population at the end of the Soviet era).
There were not a lot of options for revenge for the past. The USSR had disappeared. The new democratic Russia supported the restoration of the independent states and could not become the main enemy at that time. The overwhelming majority of Latvian communists had moved successfully to liberal and right wing parties. It was not possible to punish all those who had collaborated with the Soviets because in this case the majority of the Latvian elite – its journalists, artists, scientists, managers and lawyers would have had to be punished too. In such circumstances the local Russian-speaking minority was chosen as a target group for avenging historic grievances. Those of them, who had arrived in Latvia during Soviet times became stateless, those Russians who were the descendants of citizens of the first independent state (up to 25% of total amount of those acknowledged as Latvian citizens in 1991) were excluded from the decision making process by unwritten laws of racial discrimination. The definition “you are nothing” affected both parts of the Latvian Russian-speaking community.
The attitude of Russia to the situation of its compatriots living in Latvia was inconsistent. On one hand, the old Moscow tradition to lean on “national elites” in Soviet republics as well as business interests of new Russian oligarchy forced official Russia to “close eyes” to a discriminatory situation of local Russian-speakers. On the other hand, people in Russia through numerous personal contacts knew about an unenviable situation in which Latvian Russians were brought, and politicians in Russia couldn’t but react to critical mood of the voters. This reaction was for long time mostly directed on internal use rather than on real protection of interests of compatriots living abroad.
But even such vague reaction yielded result.In the modern world the common information space rallies people more than the common territory. And if it is based on the general cultural code including the shared attitude to history, unity of the people happens over artificial borders.Awareness of injustice to which the Russian person always had a special sensitivity, inevitable lead to an abrupt reply. Russians can take out a lot of things, but them, as well as a wire spring, it is dangerous to reap too strongly. Events in the Crimea were reflection of such situation developed in 22 years after collapse of the USSR.
The recent developments in Latvia are rather disturbing. The beginning of the year 2014 was characterized by an offensive to the rights of Russian-speakers. The new government has included in its declaration that its radical right wing component can ask for the liquidation of minority education from 2018. The headquarters for defense of Russian schools have been revived. Protest actions have already been organized and more will follow.
On the other hand, the critical concluding observations of the UN Human Rights Committee on the 3rd report of Latvia appeared in the very same days. The recommendations are as follows: “The State party should enhance its efforts to ensure the full enjoyment of the Covenant rights by “non-citizen” residents and members of linguistic minorities and further facilitate their integration into society. The State party should review the State Language Law and its application in order to ensure that any restriction on the rights of non-Latvian speakers is reasonable, proportionate and non-discriminatory, and take measures to ensure access by non-Latvian speakers to public institutions and facilitate their communication with public authorities”. Nevertheless, the Latvian Minister for education has declared that the UN Committee doesn’t understand a situation in Latvia and that the State Language Law won’t be revised by no means.
To the European Union in order that countries of Eastern Europe don’t turn away from it, it is necessary to solve a problem of transformation of EU in the real Union of values and the equal attitude towards all its inhabitants.In case of Latvia it means that EU needs to interfere and solve at last a problem of “non-citizens”, to provide to Russian a certain official status, to eradicate completely xenophobic statements concerning local people of different ethnicities. If in economy and human rights of anything doesn’t change to the best, the people of Latvia can have a temptation to turn the look to the east – towards the Russian economic and legal space.
3. However, I do think it is fair to argue that the EU has never really had a Ukraine strategy. At no point, has it really worked out what the desired end-point of policy towards Ukraine should be – and what this might require in terms of resources and risks. Instead, it treated policy towards Ukraine as a technical exercise, involving negotiating a trade deal with a large neighbour that might, one day, be a candidate for membership of the EU. But while the EU pretended that its relations with Ukraine were a technocratic exercise – involving compliance and regulations and lots of box-ticking – Russia saw this as high politics and geo-strategy. As a result, when the EU found itself sucked into a geo-political struggle with Russia, it was at a loss over how to respond.
Why is the EU so much more comfortable with technocracy than strategy? Partly because the whole method of the European Union is to drain away dangerous political passions, by focusing on economics and bureaucracy. As they like to joke in Brussels, “we used to shoot at each other, now we argue about fish quotas.” Technocracy has always been at the heart of the European enterprise. The ambition to develop a foreign policy and a defence identity is much more recent – and really only half-formed.
When it came to Ukraine, the EU’s inherent difficulty with thinking strategically was compounded by the fact that the EU member-states were, in fact, divided about what they wanted. Poland and the Baltic states have always wanted to put Ukraine on a clear path to membership of the European Union. Some of the western European members – France, in particular – were much more sceptical. Given this disagreement, it was much easier to avoid discussing the ultimate point of policy to Ukraine – and instead to focus on what the EU does best. Box-ticking.
Some say that the current crisis may now, belatedly, force the Europeans to take a more strategic approach to Ukraine. I’m not so sure. The problem is that the EU remains divided, as the current discussion over sanctions has revealed. The Poles and the Balts have again been taking the hardest line. The Brits have talked a good game, although its not yet clear how much they would do to damage the City. The Germans, who are obviously crucial, are divided – with Chancellor Merkel on the tough end of the spectrum, and some members of the SPD already yearning for rapprochement with Russia. The South-Eastern wing of the EU: Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary – is regarded as the most pro-Russian.
All international crises elicit predictions that, this time, the EU will finally be forced to grow up, and develop a real foreign policy strategy. Such expectations are usually disappointed. I don’t see why it should be any different, this time.
