Russia’s presidential elections: Europe’s window of opportunity?
It’s just like a nest of Russian dolls: lift off the Vladimir Putin doll to reveal Dmitry Medvedev. Remove Medvedev to reveal . . . Vladimir Putin. Russia’s March 2 presidential elections went pretty much as predicted and no doubt as planned, although the Communist Gennady Zyuganov polled nearly 18 per cent of the vote, which was more than expected.
The Council of Europe observers did not like what they saw, but they remarked that even if the run-up to the election had been more democratically acceptable, the result would have been the same. Indeed, there’s little doubt that the results did reflect the will of the people of Russia.
I think we should not underestimate just how deep were the traumas of the Yeltsin period, when the Soviet empire collapsed, the country was plunged into a deep economic crisis and large parts of the economy were handed over to a small coterie of people who became immensely wealthy overnight while much of the population suffered deep poverty.
The eight Putin years were surely a reaction to all that, while the economy was boosted by steadily rising oil and gas revenues. The Novosti Agency has a Russian take on the achievements and failures of the Putin years.
Maybe the Russian elections should not be considered in too negative a light. They do open a new window of opportunity for relations between Russia and the EU and maybe bilaterally with individual EU countries as well. The key question is whether the transfer of the presidency from Putin to Medvedev will mark a new direction of travel for Russian relations with its neighbours.
We’ll soon see whether Putin’s sabre-rattling was just pre-election bombast and whether Medvedev will take a different approach after he takes office on May 7.
The new president has said that he will take responsibility for foreign policy. His background is different from Putin’s – he is from the post-KGB generation and is aware of the need to stimulate business and improve social services. As chairman of Gazprom he will also be conscious of Russia’s vulnerability if the flow of foreign investment into the country’s oil and gas industries is not dramatically stepped up over the coming years to meet rising energy demand at home and the increasing dependence of EU consumers on Russian gas exports.
The Russians do seem to be treading more carefully these days. Although Gazprom supplies to Ukraine were again hit on March 3 owing to the dispute over unpaid bills, the Russians have been keen to stress that supplies to the EU will not be affected and have kept the Commission informed.
But let’s not have any illusions about the link between business and politics. Remember Kosovo? One of Medvedev’s last foreign trips before the elections was to Belgrade on February 25, where he discussed arrangements with the government whereby Gazprom will build 400km of the South Stream gas pipeline across Serbia and will also acquire a controlling stake in NIS, Serbia’s biggest gas company. Coming hot on the heels of Hungary’s approval of the South Stream project, this is a further boost for Russian access to energy markets in the Balkans and southern Europe.
As for Russia-EU relations, the most difficult challenge will be to secure Russian ratification of the Energy Charter Treaty. On the other hand, Commissioner Mandelson has been quite upbeat about negotiations for Russian accession to the WTO. The Council of Europe is also waiting anxiously for the Russian Duma to approve Protocol 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, to open the way for a wholesale reform of the procedures of the European Court of Human Rights and so help to clear the backlog of more than 80,000 cases pending. The EU is being urged to take a tough line with the new administration in Moscow.
