Mutual Dependence or Mutual Incomprehension?

The European Union citizens have been subjected to cold radiators amidst chilly winters for a number of years, with the most serious gas shortages having erupted in January last year. Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is behind this; it cuts off the European gas supplies without a warning, while the EU appears to be incapable of dealing with its unreliable neighbour. How can contemporary international relations theory account for this paradox of two mutually dependent countries cooperating in such political pandemonium?

The traditional ‘turn of the valve’

On the morning of 1 January 2009, European citizens woke up to one of the severest gas crises in their history. Russian state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom decreased drastically the volumes of gas shipped to Ukraine, which caused serious gas shortages across the EU. Already on the 2nd of January 2009, Romania reported a gas decrease of 30 to 40 percent, while countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland recorded considerable disruptions in supply. ¹

The European Union depends on Russia for one quarter of its total gas consumption, and 80 per cent of all Russian gas exports arrive in the EU via Ukraine. Thus one can clearly see how such a bilateral row like this can affect the whole of the EU, where some of the members depend almost entirely on Russia for their gas supplies (Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Bulgaria are 100 percent dependent).

There is a mixture of commercial and political motives to explain this gas row. In the commercial camp of reasons lies the immense debt Ukraine owes to Gazprom, amounting to 2.1 billion dollars. ² It is not only the current economic difficulties which prevent the country from repaying this, but also the arguments as to how much and to whom this debt needs to be paid. The second important commercial factor is the price for gas. Russia demands that Ukraine pays in line with its other Western clients, 418 dollars per 1,000 cubic metres, whereas Ukraine does not want to pay more than 235 dollars, justifiably claiming concessions on the grounds that its transit fee for Russia is too low for world standards. ³

However, it seems obvious that had this been a merely commercial dispute, a compromise would certainly have been struck. As is often the case with Russia, there are political undercurrents that come together with every commercial matter. It is well known that ‘little love has been lost between Ukraine and Russia’ ⁴ ever since the Orange Revolution brought anti-Kremlin politicians to power in Kyiv in 2004.

It has to be noted here that this dispute is nothing new, and has even been labelled ‘a Christmas ritual’ and ‘the traditional turn of the valve’ in the media. It dates back to 2006, when Russia’s gas disruptions to Ukraine first influenced Europe. Back then, without any transition period, Gazprom raised the price Ukraine pays for its gas to world levels, thus effectively quadrupling Ukraine’s costs. And in the middle of a cold winter – since the negotiations broke down – it then proceeded to briefly disrupt the EU supplies, claiming that Ukraine was siphoning off gas.

Of lame responses and unreliable partners

First and foremost, again and again the EU awakens to the fact that Russia is far from being a reliable energy supplier. Moscow is not a trustworthy commercial partner to do business with since it often uses energy recourses for geopolitical aims to influence the course of political events. It has proved this on a number of occasions: apart from Ukraine, it has also cut off gas to Belarus and Georgia; while it has also reduced its oil supplies to Lithuania and the Czech Republic. ⁵ Therefore, this dispute did nothing but damage Russia’s reputation even further. The gas disruptions in the end reached as far as Germany, France and Italy, with even German Chancellor Angela Merkel issuing a particularly stern message. ⁶

Secondly, one cannot help but wonder at the EU’s lame and late response to this gas crisis. It took it a whole week to wake up to the need to take urgent measures, when most of the countries were already experiencing severe negative consequences. Moreover, ‘it went out of its way not to lay blame and to treat it as a technical dispute’; ⁷ with the EU Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, claiming that ‘the EU trusts that we can count upon assurances given that gas supplies to the EU will be unaffected’. ⁸ Hence, after all these years the EU has not only failed to step in to solve the issue by now (because it clearly affects it in the most direct way possible), but has not even learnt how such disputes usually end (serious disruptions for European supplies).

In fact, as late as October 2009 European energy regulators warned that the debt issue between Russia and Ukraine has not been resolved, and therefore, yet another gas crisis is likely this winter. To tackle this, during the upcoming EU-Russia energy summit, the leaders are expected to launch an early warning system to prevent Russian gas interruptions to the EU market. Equally, in July 2009 the European Commission has elaborated new rules to improve security of gas supplies in the framework of the internal gas market. ⁹ The success of all these measures remains to be evaluated.

What is clear is that Russia, whatever the reasons might be, is an unreliable commercial partner and an erratic gas supplier. After all, how long can the EU watch Russia cut-off gas exports as it pleases? And why the EU has failed to solve this problem of the traditional turn of the valve during all these years?

Neighbours from hell or just from different eras?

The contradictions in the EU-Russian relationship are apparent: in place of mutual dependency there appears to be mutual incomprehension. The two neighbours have many common interests with regard to energy, they are mutually dependent and interconnected by infrastructure; nonetheless, their energy cooperation is ravaged by misunderstandings and arguments. Also, Russia indulges in actions that are damaging for this mutual interdependence, at least as seen by the EU, despite the country’s interest in the EU as a customer.

There are, beyond any doubt, different explanations and theoretical justifications for this paradox. The most interesting way of looking at it, in my view, would be to apply British diplomat Robert Cooper’s theory of international relations, The post-modern state and the world order, which was first published in 2000.

Cooper divides the world into pre-modern, modern and post-modern states, claiming that the post-modern world order came into existence with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, mainly in Europe. According to him, the world is divided into three groups of states. A pre-modern state ‘no longer fulfils Weber’s criterion of having the legitimate monopoly on the use of force’, [10] with examples being Somalia and Afghanistan. Modern states, for their part, ‘retain the monopoly of force and may be prepared to use it against each other’. ¹¹ Cooper describes this modern world of states as ‘the world of the calculus of interests and forces described by Machiavelli and Clausewitz’. ¹² Ultimately, a post-modern state is characterised by the following features among others:

• ‘Mutual interference in domestic affairs and mutual surveillance’ -‘The rejection of force for resolving disputes and the consequent codification of rules of behaviour’ -‘Security is based on transparency, mutual openness, interdependence and mutual vulnerability’ ¹³

Hence Cooper claims that the EU belongs to the post-modern element of the international order and is its best example. He is not the only one to ascribe the features of a post-modern state to the EU. American historian Robert Kagan regards the EU in the same way. He claims that the main qualities of European strategic culture tend to emphasise negotiation, diplomacy and commercial ties, as well as preferring international law to the use of force, seduction to coercion and multilateralism to unilateralism. ¹⁴

As regards Russia, at the time of writing (2000) Cooper was not sure what camp of states Russia should be assigned to, claiming that it shows traits from different state camps. In 2009, it appears obvious that Russia has become a modern state indeed.

First and somewhat ironic is the fact that in 2000 Cooper identified two features as most important post-modern elements in Russian state evolution: its acceptance of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and of OSCE observers in Chechnya. ¹⁵ The situation has changed drastically since then. In November 2007 the State Duma, Russia's lower house of Parliament, voted for suspending the country's participation in the CFE Treaty, following the American plan to build missile defence facilities in Central Europe. ¹⁶ Besides, after the recent Georgia conflict, Russia refuses to let the OSCE monitors into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two territories Putin and Medvedev rushed to recognise as independent in the aftermath of the war. Therefore, the country clearly is moving away from the so-called ‘post-modernism’.

Equally, Russia possesses many other features which Cooper ascribes to modern states in his analysis. For instance, he maintains that the modern world is ‘still a world in which the ultimate guarantor of security is force, a world in which, in theory at least, borders can be changed by force’. ¹⁷ And Russian escapades into Georgia proper last August can serve as an example here.

Hence Russia is modern; and the EU, post-modern. This leads to different views on the conduct of their foreign and economic policies, as well as different approaches and aims as far as regional and international cooperation is concerned. While a modern state sees the world in terms of constant calculus of geopolitical interests, maximising its power and economic gains; a post-modern state puts a much greater emphasis on shared values and responsibilities, seeing its task as ‘to promote open democratic institutions, open market economies and open multilateral or transnational diplomacy’. ¹⁸

Being a post-modern actor, the EU sees energy as a trade commodity and gas trade as an economic activity. Its main aims are cheap prices for its customers and security of supplies, thus ensuring that there are no interruptions or dangerous accidents. And it sees diversification as a healthy economic move which stimulates competition and lower prices, giving more leverage to a customer.

As a modern state, Russia sees everything in terms of geopolitical gains, including energy. Nowadays it is oil and gas in Russia, not the army and the navy, which ‘are being treated by ascendant conservatives as the country’s most important assets’. ¹⁹ It can be clearly seen if one looks at the country’s Energy Strategy, the document known as Elaboration on the Main Provisions of the Energy Strategy of Russia to 2020 adopted in 2003. Unsurprisingly, it states that ‘Russia must use its unique geographical and geopolitical location. The energy factor is a fundamental element within Russian diplomacy, for the foreign policy realisation of the energy strategy’, ²⁰ which clearly proves that in Russians’ minds, at least to a certain extent, ‘the geopolitics of energy relationships has replaced or absorbed the traditional geopolitics of military balances’. ²¹

Therefore, Cooper’s theory helps to explain why EU-Russia energy relationship is not as straightforward and mutually beneficial as they ought to be; and the reason is that the two see the world through very different lenses: Russia through constant struggle for domination and balance-of-power, and the EU through cooperation, negotiation and a market-based approach. Their mutual incomprehension thus stems from the fact that the two see gas trade like chalk and cheese: the EU treats it is a commercial good, whereas Russia perceives it as a geopolitical tool.

Hence its cut-off of gas to Ukraine; the Kremlin strategists believed that it would undermine Ukraine as a transit country, while boosting the prospect of the alternative transit routes, such as Nord Stream and South Stream. ²² Both pipelines are supported by Gazprom, and are intended to bring Russian gas straight to EU customers (to Germany via Nord Stream and to Bulgaria via South Stream), while at the same time bypassing Ukraine.

All doom and gloom or is there a light at the end of the tunnel?##

When talking about relations between modern and post-modern states, Cooper emphasises the ‘need to get used to the idea of double standards’. ²³ A post-modern state can operate on the basis of laws, negotiation and cooperation only among other post-modern states; whereas when dealing with a modern state, it needs ‘to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era’. ²⁴ European frustrations and misunderstandings are rooted in its inability to see Russia for what it is, rather preferring to see it for what the EU wants it to be – a post-modern actor with a value-based political culture.

To bring this discussion to a close, what the EU should do to make the most of its energy partnership with Russia is pay attention to Cooper’s analysis when dealing with the Kremlin. Firstly, the EU must understand the culture with which it is dealing, since no negotiations can be conducted unless the EU takes Russia for what it is. This means putting a stop to efforts to harmonise legislatures, commit to common values such as human rights and the rule of law (as they, in fact, are not common), as well as demands to open the Russian gas market and make it more liberal. Russia will not do it; moreover, it only makes the Kremlin frustrated and, in its view, creates obstacles for a straightforward relationship based on simple supplier-consumer logic. ²⁵ The reason why the area where the EU-Russia cooperation is most developed is trade is because ‘Russia sees the EU as an economic giant but a political dwarf’. ²⁶ Thus, what Russia wants from the EU is a clear figure as to how much gas it will buy and for how long, not intricate mechanisms and conditions. And that is what the EU should provide Russia with to ensure a mutual security of supply/demand.

Secondly, all this does not suggest that the EU is in a weaker position and must be subject to the Kremlin’s pressure, for Cooper stresses the need for post-modern states to preserve their values when dealing among themselves. It is vital that energy relations with Russia do not halt the EU’s own policies and objectives: creating a common electricity grid (to undermine gas disruptions to any single member state), increasing energy from renewables (to decrease dependency on fossil fuels altogether) and elaborating a coordinated common EU energy strategy. The recent energy crises have revealed a clear lack of strategic thinking on the part of the EU, and European leaders must correct this. And equally importantly, the EU should continue with its efforts to diversify its energy imports, putting all its political and economic support behind such pipeline projects as Nabucco.

Ultimately, what Cooper’s theory shows is that misunderstandings and difficulties in the EU-Russian energy cooperation stem from the fact that the two possess different world views and resort to different policy conduct, despite their geographical proximity and shared interests in energy trade. Russia is a modern state, whereas the EU belongs to the post-modern camp. This does not imply that the two cannot cooperate; rather, taking their differences into account, they have to elaborate rules of the game that are acceptable and beneficial to both of them.

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