Russia and the European Union

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has so far occupied a much less prominent place in Russian foreign policy than other European institutions and there has been little of the public debate and controversy that has surrounded relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or indeed the Council of Europe (COE). The EU has been perceived primarily as an economic organization and its aspirations to play a leading political and security role in the ‘new Europe’ have only gradually come to be recognized, let alone accepted, by the Russian authorities. Certainly, Russia does not appear to share the EU’s own perception of itself as the other major power on the continent and has continued to regard bilateral relations with the traditional ‘great European powers’ such as Germany and France as the normal way of conducting relations with the EU member states.¹ Although access to the EU’s market has been seen as an important objective by Moscow, the potential benefits of a closer political relationship are only gradually being appreciated. The other major reason for the relatively low profile of the EU in Russian foreign policy has been that membership does not seem to be a serious policy option, despite occasional press statements to the contrary. Russia’s huge size, Eurasian geopolitical position, global interests and the continuing perception of itself as a great power would make it very difficult to accept the constraints of EU membership. Whether this might change some time in the future will be discussed later, but so far it has meant that priority has been given to relations with those western institutions to which Russia has sought membership (the COE, the Group of Seven and the World Trade Organization (WTO)).