“I think this is going to be a good day for the European Union and for each of the six partners,” said Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs, at the opening of her meeting today with leaders of countries in the EU’s Eastern neighborhood at the just-concluded EU Summit in Riga, Latvia.
Whatever the reasons for such optimistic expectations, it is far from obvious that the meeting met them. Not only did the summit avoid any discussion of the elephant in the room, namely Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, it also exposed the lack of a shared vision for engaging with EU’s Eastern neighbors. None of the Eastern Partnership countries, which include Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia — all keen to join the EU — has been offered a firm timetable for the membership, for instance.
EU’s eastern partners, in turn, are increasingly tired of waiting in limbo. In Moldova, the support for EU membership is declining. In Ukraine, the Maidan enthusiasm is gradually evaporating, closing the window of opportunity for serious economic and institutional reform.
In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the prospect of EU membership, accompanied by a believable timeframe, fuelled reform efforts in the post-communist countries of Central Europe. The current hesitation to accelerate talks with Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova plays into the hands of those who want those countries to remain vulnerable to economic and political manipulation by Moscow.
Beyond membership, both ordinary Ukrainians and pro-European political forces in the country would benefit from a visa-free regime with the Schengen area, which has already been introduced in Moldova. Besides “warmly [welcoming] the progress made,” the Riga Summit brought no news on this front, although waiving the visa requirement would generate benefits for everyone involved, including the old EU countries.
Short of offering membership, there is much more for the Union to do. Opening access to its labor markets to Ukrainians, Moldovans, or Georgians would signal that the EU can do more than just talk. “Many Ukrainians already work in the EU, particularly in the new member states of central and eastern Europe. Some of them might be there illegally but many fill important gaps in the job market, for example in the medical profession,” I wrote in an article almost a year ago, making the case both for a visa waiver and for the opening of EU’s labor markets to countries in the Eastern Partnership. On both fronts, little observable progress has been made to date.
Europe’s lukewarm engagement with its eastern neighbors reflects a deeper crisis, illustrated also by the protracted fiscal and economic troubles in Greece and the rise of populist euroskepticism across the continent, typically with ugly nationalist undertones. At the end of the summit, the president of the European Council Donald Tusk called the European Union “a partner for the long-haul” and cautioned against “dramatic decisions or taking giant steps forward.” That thinking, characteristic of EU’s political elites, mistakes equivocation for strategy. Worse, it ignores the urgency of the current situation, both within the EU and in its eastern neighborhood.
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