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Научно-аналитический вестник ИЕ РАН, 2018, №5
УДК 324, 327 Olga POTEMKINA
RUSSIA AND THE EU FACING COMMON SOFT SECURITY THREATS: HOW TO DEAL WITH «THE STRATEGIC CHALLENGE?»
Abstract. This article evaluates the key challenges of EU-Russia cooperation against terrorism and organized crime under the regime of sanctions. The author examines the roots of the complic-ted contacts between Russian law enforcement bodies and the EU institutions as well as the impact of sanctions, both direct and indirect, upon the results of interaction in the certain areas - counter-terrorism activities, fighting organized crime - drugs trafficking, illegal migration, etc. The author argues that the «selective engagement» in the analyzedfield has provided very limited results in the absence of the high-level political dialogue.
Keywords: security, Europol, terrorism, selective engagement, business as usual, Global strategy, political dialogue, sanctions, UN General Assembly, illegal migration, drugs trafficking.
On 11 July 2017, a year after the EU Global Strategy was adopted, Federica Mogherini, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister, agreed in Brussels to step up regular contacts - «to increase the rhythm of exchanges at different levels on the main foreign policy issues». Several meetings took place in 2017-2018 were dedicated to international relations, especially the situation in Libya, the tension in the Gulf and on the Korean peninsula, the Middle East peace process, the Western Balkans, and the conflicts in Eastern Ukraine and Syria. That gave hope to the Russian Foreign minister that the situation will gradually come back to normal1.
EU's and Russia's «new normal»: returning to «business as usual»?
The important questions arise: What is «normal?» Will tensions pass and we see just resumption of work on building a cooperative EU-Russia relationship? Or can we rather expect the «emer-
• • 2
gence of a new model of bilateral relations, significantly different in character and intensity?» .
The EU has repeatedly stressed inadmissibility of returning to «business as usual» in the relations with Russia. Russia agrees that a fundamental change is needed: just resetting the relationship will not remove its underlying systemic imperfections3.
The crucial point is what is business as usual? It is clear that the Ukrainian crisis of 2014 can be only formally considered a watershed in the EU-Russia relations, in reality a period of cooling started earlier. Russia has been long ago unsatisfied by the status quo or business as usual and demonstrated unwillingness to be just a passive consumer of the EU norms, but desired to be rather an equal actor in the multipolar world. Therefore, today Russia is clearly not talking about reproducing
© Potemkina Olga - Doctor of Political Sciences, Head of Department of the European Integration Studies, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences. Address: 11-3, Mokhovaya str., Moscow, Russia, 125009. Professor of the Faculty of the World Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. E-mail: ol-ga_potemkina@mail. ru. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15211/vestnikieran5201849
1 Bulletin Quotidien Europe №11828, 13.07.17.
2 Special Report. Damage Assessment: EU-Russia relations in crisis June 2017. Edited by: L. Kulesa, I. Timofeev, J. Dobbs (eds). ELN-RIAC, 2017. P. 6.
3 As Vladimir Chizhov, Permanent Representative stated, Russia does not need business as usual, but rather more sensible, honest and open cooperation, which must be free of value-oriented approach, but base upon mutual interdependence. Vladimir Chizhov. Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the EU. Interview to the ITAR-TASS News Agency, 24 December 2014. URL: http://itar-tass.com/politika/1669109.
what was lost after 2014, but about creating a new formula of relations. What will be this new formula?
Is the EU ready to answer Russia's desire for establishing relation on equal footing? By no means. The Global Strategy convinces that even if the political dialogue is defrosted Russia will not become an EU partner in counter-terrorism or fighting the other global security threats. The «new normal» does not give clear perception of Russia's role in the European security architecture1. Conditionally remains a main principle in the EU approach to Russia - the options to resume cooperation, even in fighting terrorism are conditioned by Russia's readiness to implement Minsk agree-
ments2.
Meanwhile, Russia's National Security Strategy includes a list of new threats, and, among them, a threat to Russia's independent foreign policy from the side of the US and «their allies» who aspire to dominate in the world. The Strategy states that by means of deterrence they exert economic, political and informational pressure on Russia. Following this logic, NATO and the EU, from their part, pose a challenge to Russia. Actually, Moscow and Brussels put forward the similar arguments to accuse each other of the same sins - violation of international law, security threats, an attempt to establish the world order according to in their own rules. Still Russia sees its mission in joint answer to world threats and challenges.
The EU Global Strategy does not equate Russia with ISIS but rather identifies it as the key strategic challenge. Thus, in attempts to manage situation in Syria Russia together with China are considered (challenging) interlocutors more than partners3. However, in spite of differences in perceptions and motivations, Russia and EU recognize a similar global challenge. Besides, there is «a certain degree of threat-connectivity between» Russia and Europe, which strongly motivate them for cooperation.
The Global Strategy reproduces Mogherini's «Five points» and displays Russia as a source of security challenges to the EU. However, similar to the «Five points», the Strategy suggests pragmatic cooperation on a limited number of issues, terrorism and organized crime among them, regarding Russia as a «global actor» and thus recognizing its role in counter-terrorism.
Terrorism and organized crime
The European Commission's principal role in the field of counter-terrorism and fight with organized crime is to support the Member States' actions and initiatives. Besides, basing upon the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the Commission assists the MS in legal approximation. The Commission together with the High Representative, the EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator and Justice and Home Affairs agencies (Europol, Eurojust, CEPOL and the European border and coast guard agency) carries on political dialogues with priority partners in the Middle East, North Africa, the Western Balkans and Turkey. Russia is not included in the list of the priority partners, and the political dialogue was frozen, although the consultations on terrorism have been held regularly.
1 Timofeev I. Russia and the West: the New Normal. Russian International Affairs Council. Moscow, 2016. P. 23.
2 Danilov D. «EU - Russia: Making up for Security Cooperation Shortfall». In O. Potemkina (ed.) The EU - Russia: The Way out or the Way down? RAS: Moscow, 2018. Р. 20-28.
3 Renard Th. «Partnering for Global Security: The EU, Its Strategic Partners and Transnational Security Challenges». European Foreign Affairs review, 2016. P. 19.
Научно-аналитический вестник ИЕ РАН, 2018, №5
Under the sanctions regime Russia maintains relations with the EU Member States law enforcement authorities and with the EU institutions and agencies as well. However, it was included in the EU-Russia political agenda, in both the Road maps on internal external security and the Permanent Partnership Council meetings.
The last EU-Russia common initiative was the Joint statement on combatting terrorism on 28 January 2014 after the EU-Russia summit1. It was highly appreciated in both the EU and Russia as, inter alia, an only visible result of the EU-Russia last summit, before the political dialogue was frozen. As Th. Renard points out, joint statements do not always lead to concrete actions, they just send a political signal to start consultations and negotiations on a series of substantial agreements partners - on extradition, mutual legal assistance, passenger name record (PNR) or financing of terrorism. Until now, the EU-US partnership is the only one that has managed to cumulate a number of these2. However, it was expected that the list of activities would be adopted during the consultations on combating terrorism within the Russia-EU political dialogue, which was very soon frozen and Russia's participation in G8 suspended. The EU sanctions, announced 26 July 2014, imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 15 people, including the Head of Russia's Federal Security Service and the Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Four members of Russia's national Security Council are also on the list. The RF Foreign Ministry statement denounced the sanctions saying they show the EU is taking «a complete turn away from joint work with Russia on international and regional security, including the fight against the spread of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism (and) organized crime»3.
It should be noted, however, that Russian and European security services and law enforcement bodies have never interrupted operative contacts. But in the absence of the political dialogue their activities have become more complicated.
The Joint statement on combatting assured that EU and Russia «act on the premise that the fight against terrorism is a long-term process, requiring from the international community a complex approach and united efforts for countering terrorists striving to impose their will on states, both at national, regional and global levels». However, it is not very obvious that today the world is able to rally around the fight with terrorism as in September 2001. Political disagreements on the roots of terrorism remain a serious obstacle to cooperation.
Russia's position towards international terrorism has not changed - to fight terrorists one should support those who suffers in a greater degree from their actions - that is Iraqi and Syrian governments. This is «a key issue to resolutely counter the terrorists who are attempting to control increasingly larger territories in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and the Sahara-Sahel area. ... this task should not be sacrificed to ideological schemes», the RF Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed in his speech to the 69th session of the UN General Assembly. Lavrov called to structure the struggle against terrorists in Syria in cooperation with the Syrian government, «which has already proven
1 Joint EU-Russia statement on combatting terrorism. Brussels, 28.01.2014. URL: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/140835.pdf.
2 Renard Th. «Confidential partnerships? The EU, its strategic partners and international terrorism». ESPO working paper n. 4 January 2014. P. 21.
3 The RF Ministry of Foreign Affair's statement, 26.07.2014. URL: http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/25A2BD25E3B202 BD44257D1800253CCB.
Научно-аналитический вестник ИЕ РАН, 2018, №5
its ability to work with the international community by delivering on its obligations under the programme to dispose of its chemical weapons». He confirmed Russia's resolution to supply the governments of Iraq, Syria and other MENA countries weapons and military equipment and to continue to support their efforts to suppress terrorists.
Besides, Russia prepares to counter the terrorists' attempts to act on Russian territory, and this is the main reason for Russia's cooperating with both the EU and the US by exchanging information, which has become the most important instrument of international cooperation against terrorism. To this background, the frozen Russia's operative agreement with Europol is becoming even more urgent than a year ago.
However, there is still a lack of awareness that the current situation, when the Russia-NATO and Russia-EU mechanisms are frozen, does not respond to the common interests of fight with terrorism. ISIS demands more serious attitude and resistance. Its emissaries have appeared not only in Syria and Iraq, but in Libya, Lebanon, and North of Afghanistan. This is very close to Central Asia from where they can maintain contacts with terrorists in Europe. The Islamists, who have arrived in Europe, will establish contacts with the similar terrorist groups in the North Caucasus. Terrorists interact on a broad front and they do not take offence at each other. So a response must be based upon unbiased analysis of a problem which would demonstrate the necessity of an urgent political and diplomatic interaction as well as cooperation of security services, military and law enforcement bodies. These mechanisms have functioned rather effectively and that was not Russia's initiative to freeze them.
In October 2017 Natalie Tocci, the advisor to the High Representative confirmed a need for the EU-Russia cooperation against terrorism as a common threat. She noted the different approaches to this challenge but at the same time common perception of the issue, because terrorism does not have borders. In Tocci's opinion, Russia and the EU should not only exchange information but counteract also the roots of people's radicalization1. It is worth mentioning that in 2017 both the EU and Russia adopted similar legislation on strengthening penalty for supporting terrorism. The Russian law presupposes responsibility for terrorism financing, as well as recruitment and any other involvement of a person in terrorist crimes2.
In the conditions of the frozen political dialogue Moscow and Brussels hosted several rounds of consultations on international cooperation in countering terrorism between Russian and the EU in-teragency delegations. The sides exchanged assessments of global and regional terrorist threats and counter-terrorism experience. Russia and the EU do not exchange operational information on terrorism. The certain exchange is maintained through national channels but with the EU structures only the expert dialogue is currently in the agenda with the Russian MFA's participation. Russia and the European Union are both concerned by the threat of the foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) returning from the zones of military conflicts. They took the necessary legislative measures in the framework of the implementation of the relevant resolution of the UN Security Council. Now this is the time for developing the intensive exchange of information about the FTF and their movements, the diffu-
1 Parlamentskaya gazeta, 17.10.2017.
2 The RF Federal Law on improving counter-terrorism measures. URL: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View /0001201712290061.
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sion of terrorist and extremist ideology, radicalisation, including on the internet, financing of terrorism. The possibilities were discussed to expand anti-terrorism cooperation in multilateral formats, primarily at the UN.
What are the principles which could become a basis for cooperation? Russia rejects the EU's approach like this: cooperation might be restarted on the condition that Russia changes its attitude and behavior towards Ukraine. Until now Russia has been considered «a partner as much as a target of European counter-terrorism efforts», and thus the EU «has developed counter-terrorism programmes on Russia (more than with Russia)»1. The war in Syria as well as the terrorist attacks in Europe were expected to change the situation and make the EU recognize Russia's key role in fighting the global threat. The «Mogherini paper» gave a certain hope for re-starting cooperation despite of «the evident differences between Russia and the EU on the Syrian crisis». Surely, potential cooperation is complicated by the sides' different approaches to the sources of terrorism and the political processes in the Middle East and Northern Africa. However, the paper, among the other proposals, recognized a value of «existing counterterrorism dialogue with Russia»2. Still the conditional approach was clearly demonstrated which Russia rejected in the same unreserved manner.
Cooperation in preventing drugs trafficking has always seemed more important for Russia than to the EU because the trafficking routes to Europe do not go through Russia but rather the Balkans and the Mediterranean. However, the EU-Russia cooperation has developed positively enough in consultations between the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA and the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (since 2016 - the General Directorate for Drug Control). Both parties showed interest in exchanging experience and their best practices.
Drug police bodies of Russia, EU and USA continued cooperation in spite of sanctions, although information exchange has decreased. Viktor Ivanov, the Head FDCS is included in the US sanction list, but not in the European one. In August 2014 he participated in a meeting with the colleagues from Interpol and the senior French police officers, who, according to Mr. Ivanov's interview, «got the directive from President Holland to cooperate closely with Russia with no limita-tions»3.
The latest Russia-EU expert consultations on drugs were held on 19 September 2018 in Brussels, where the participants exchanged their views on drug policies, drug situation in Russia and EU Member States, the problem of new psychoactive substances. The implementation of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session final document on the world drug problem in the context of comprehensive review of Political Declaration was discussed. The Plan of Action of 2009 on countering illicit drug trafficking was discussed as well.
However, anti-narcotic fight is not limited by the law enforcement bodies' cooperation. Although planning and conducting joint operations and information exchange form basic for common activities and trust between police bodies has always been high, this is political dialogue and, especially, political will for cooperation that play their significant role.
1 Renard Th. «Confidential partnerships?». P. 18.
2 Issue Paper on relations with Russia. Foreign Affairs Council of January 19, 2015.
3 Viktor Ivanov's interview to the «Echo of Moscow» radio station on 6 October 2014. URL: http://echo.msk.ru/pro grams/beseda/1413178 -echo/
Научно-аналитический вестник ИЕ РАН, 2018, №5
Conclusions
There were no serious contradictions in combating common internal security threats before the Ukrainian crisis. Nevertheless, Russia's desire for being an equal partner within the common space and defending its own interests has slowed down cooperation. The lack of will to apprehend the European norms in the field of internal security makes highly unlikely reinvigorating of the EU-Russia common internal security space, even in case if the political dialogue is relaunched. The EU will not change its modus operandi and Russia will not agree to be just a norm-taker, preferring to participate in elaboration of the UN universal norms.
Cooperation against drug trafficking until now has not brought any significant results. Still, stopping drugs trafficking is a global challenge, where both Russia and the EU should participate in full. Ideally, drafting a coherent anti-drug policy in the framework of the UN Conventions and developing the legal base for bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the EU Member States meets the EU-Russia strategic interests. To carry out this task, Russia could further develop bilateral cooperation with the MS, which has already been fruitful, as well as together with the EU to engage in international fora and the other common initiatives. Cooperation against economic crime should be intensified, especially between Russia's Federal Customs Service and OLAF.
Still that does not mean that the high-level political dialogue could be abandoned, as this is «the crucial part of confrontation management»1, it should not be replaced just by uncoordinated actions based upon overlapping interests. Now it is clear enough, that the 'selective engagement' in fighting the global security threats is not bringing good results. The permanent channel of highlevel political dialogue is needed to make EU and Russia understand each other's motivations, possibilities and bounds, to correctly manage transnational security threats.
References
Danilov D. «EU - Russia: Making up for Security Cooperation Shortfall». In O. Potemkina (ed.) The EU - Russia: The Way out or the Way down? Institute of Europe, RAS: Moscow, 2018.
Joint EU-Russia statement on combatting terrorism. Brussels, 28.01.2014. URL: http://www. consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/140835.pdf.
Renard Th. «Confidential partnerships? The EU, its strategic partners and international terrorism». ESPO working paper n. 4 January 2014.
Special Report. Damage Assessment: EU-Russia relations in crisis June 2017. Edited by: L. Kulesa, I. Timofeev, J. Dobbs (eds). ELN-RIAC, 2017.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15211/vestnikieran5201849
1 Frear T., Kearns J. Defusing future crises in the shared neighbourhood: Can a clash between the West and Russia be prevented? ELN, 2017.
Научно-аналитический вестник ИЕ РАН, 2018, №5
