Eamon Dyas
I think John Mearsheimer’s question as to why the politicians of European countries appear to have lost the ability to think strategically and logically when it comes to Russia has to be seen in the context of the EU. With the systematic attempt to erode the idea of separate national interests and subsume them under an abstract idea of Europe it has left successive generations of those pursuing an ambition in politics incapable of viewing the idea of national interests as a paramount concern. It’s all about Europe. But there is no such thing as a Europe that is anchored to a geographical entity that can assess the geopolitical arena from a perspective that is capable of balancing risk versus gain in strategic terms as was the case when it came to nation states. All that these politicians can now do is to perceive the world from the aspect of an ideal that has not yet reached the political maturity that comes with nation states and it is that ideal that now determines what passes for strategic and rational thinking. Those “European” politicians with the intelligence to see the limitations of their situation are either too ambitious to see that the emperor has no clothes or believe that the current war in Ukraine provides the opportunity to make the EU idea a reality by steeling it through the fire of a war. This is a real danger because the way that the weapons of war have evolved means that it is now possible to fight a war without the need for the involvement of the whole population and although the EU idea is incapable of generating the necessary commitment from the majority of its populace that no longer acts as a hindrance, or at least is not seen as a hindrance, by those pursuing that line of progress that sees conflict as the route towards what they believe will turn out to be a more solidified Europe.
We have spoken before about the unification of Europe by way of unification of energy supply and pricing, and the rejection of Russian gas.
EU policy to detach EU energy from Russian energy—summary
Regarding the European Commission and Ukraine. As was explained previously, from early on the European Commission had been pursuing a policy of “soft” coercion when it came to separating European states from Russian energy. In its practical application this involved a two stage process. The first stage was to ensure that energy production and distribution utilities were privatised within the constituent states of the EU. The second stage was to manipulate the recently privatised energy companies into a re-arrangement of their activities in ways that involved the separation of the production and distribution activities of energy utility companies in order to encourage a cross-country “European” perspective which “freed” them from energy policies formulated by their respective governments – policies that were at the time tied to the use of Russian energy. In pursuit of this objective the Commission was not beyond using its anti-trust and monopoly powers to “encourage” utility
European unification through Energy policy. Extracts from previous Labour Affairs articles on this topic:
“Brussels would also take over energy negotiations with third parties such as Russia, Europe’s main energy supplier, arguing that EU members will get a better deal if they combine forces rather than negotiate on their own.” (“Fearful EU aims to take energy policy from governments”, The Times, 9 March 2006.)
This was correctly interpreted by The Times newspaper as an attempt by the European Commission to “seize control of energy policy from national governments” following the “decision by Britain to yield control over energy policy to Brussels” (ibid.).
European Commission’s tactics for taking control of national energy sectors
The significance of the events in 2007 and the Lisbon Treaty was that, thanks to the likes of Poland and the Baltic countries, the member states of the EU were now encouraged to view the energy issue in the wider context of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This represented a victory for that element inside the EU bureaucracy and within European politics that was determined to weaken the prerogatives of national states over their energy policies – something they viewed as a hindrance to the pursuit of their federal ideal.
It should be noted at this point that the original point of weakness for national energy sovereignty was laid down much earlier with the obligation placed on nation states to privatise their previously state-owned energy companies – something that was a precursor to the directive of the European Union’s First Electricity Directive, issued on 19 February 1996 which sought to establish a new regulatory framework.
The special case of Germany
However, the Commission never fully got its way with Germany whose economic success had come to rely to a large extent on access to cheap energy from Russia. When it came to energy policy Germany continued to plough its own furrow. In this regard it has to be said that other countries, and even the European Commission grudgingly acknowledged that the German economy, if it was to continue to act as the engine-room for Europe’s economic success, would require such access. Nonetheless, as later events would show, while it may have stood back at this point in time, the European Commission never really abandoned its efforts to prise Germany away from Russian energy.
Policy against Russian gas
Ukraine and Russian energy
The logical objective that followed from the European Commission defining Russian oil and gas as a threat to European energy security was the emergence of a policy which sought to reduce the European Union’s reliance on Russian energy. Alongside, the use of coercive administrative measures to inhibit such reliance the Commission also used the inducement of possible access to alternative suppliers of oil and gas – all of which sat alongside the environmentalist objective of reducing the overall use of carbon-based energy sources.
In practical terms, the effort to find alternative sources of energy involved the European Commission providing political and financial support for projects that involved the construction of new pipelines to convey oil and gas from non-Russian sources to the European market even if this made no economic sense.
Although the European Commission’s objective in terms of its attitude towards Russian energy was given impetus in the aftermath of the EU’s eastern expansion in 2004 it had followed a policy of encouraging the use of alternatives to Russian energy before that – in fact it went out of its way to encourage the de-coupling of former Soviet countries from Russian energy even prior to them joining the EU in spite of the fact that it made no economic sense for those countries to do so.
Efforts by EU to bring Ukraine in as a member
As early as 1993 a Ukrainian government had announced that joining the EU was its main foreign policy objective and in the following year the country signed a “Partnership and Cooperation Agreement” with the EU which was scheduled to come into force in 1998.
Labour Affairs 