1. This Report is continuation of the 2021 report on the direction of EU-Russia political relations, which was approved before Russia military invasion into Ukraine and in which EP warned, that Russia is becoming an aggressive dictatorship. EP in that report suggested to build future relations with Russia on the basis of “democracy first” principle, looking for possibilities how to help Russia after Putin to transform itself back to normal democratic development.
2. Report of this year is targeted to the same strategic goal – how to help transformation of Russia in those new circumstances when Russia started aggressive war against Ukraine and when defeat of Russia in Ukraine can open the window of opportunity for such a transformation.
3. The draft of the Report, which is prepared , in general is the product of our collective efforts together with my colleagues – AFET rapporteurs on Russia: W.Cimoszewicz, S.Lagodinsky, B.Guetta, since we have spend a lot of time on different webinars, conferences, informal discussions both with Europeans and representatives of Russian opposition discussing the same topic – how to help Russia to transform itself.
4. Some major ideas of the report are coming from our permanent dialogue with Russian liberal civil society and opposition and from major event of that sort – the first conference of Brussels Dialogue in June this year, where we, four rapporteurs on Russia, managed to bring into European Parliament together large number of representatives of Russian opposition and representatives of EU institutions to discuss future of democracy when “the day after” will come, it means when Putin regime will collapse. We are continuing our dialogue and the draft of this report is also discussed in this dialogue with Russian opposition.
5. Why it’s so important now to concentrate our efforts and develop our strategy how to help Russian transformation? a) we need to overcome the fear in some Western capitals that Russian defeat in Ukraine can bring collapse of Putin regime and then some “prigozhins” will come to power; such fear brings hesitation to give enough weapons to Ukraine; we need to show that collapse of Putin regime will open the widow of opportunity for positive transformations in Russia, and there is no need to fear Ukraine’s decisive victory; b) Russian transformation to normality and democracy is the only way in the longer term how sustainable peace can be established on European continent.
6. Our assistance to Russia’s transformation has two major elements: a)our long term Ukraine strategy with Ukraine’s military victory, reconstruction, and Ukraine integration towards EU and NATO, because Russian defeat and Ukraine rooted in the West is the only way how Russians can be helped to abandon their aggressive post-imperial nostalgia; from another side success off Ukraine, created through integration can be a positive inspiration for Russians; and b) our strategy how we are going to support and engage with Russian opposition and civil society, both before und after Putin’s collapse, is very much needed for us to be effective in helping the transformation of Russia.
7. Our strategy to support Russia’s transformation needs to be comprehensive, with the clearly defined goals for different periods of time: as we metaphorically call it – “The year before” (before day X), “The day after”, “The year after”.
8. Strategy for different periods should cover most important topics:
1) strategy for Ukraine’s victory and success: weapons, sanctions, tribunal, seizure of frozen Russian assets; reconstruction of Ukraine and integration of Ukraine towards EU and NATO;
2) support and institutional dialogue with Russian opposition: from democracy passport up to support for communication capacities both towards Russia and towards the West;
3) our conditionality for reforms when “the day after” comes in order for us to be able to recognize that transformation has happened;
4) drafting and publishing now what kind of relations we are ready to establish in the future between of EU and democratic Russia after Putin and after the democratic transformation.
9. At the end – what is the essence of our report. It can be understood if one remembers an open confession of J.Borrell last November in the plenary. He said: “Before the war, EU was so heavily dependent on Russian gas, that EU had no strategy towards Russia, and no strategy towards Ukraine, because EU strategy towards Ukraine was subordinated towards our strategy to Russia”. Now time has changed: we are not anymore dependent on Russian gas. It is time for us to have a clear strategy towards Russia, which this time should be in some way subordinated towards our strategy to Ukraine. That is the way how we can support transformation of Russia, which is very much needed not only to the people of Russia, but also to us, because this is the way how sustainable peace on European continent can be established.
Report on EU-Russia relations, AFET meeting, 24.10.2023 | Член наглядової ради ГО “Євроатлантичний курс” Андрюс Кубілюс
