Eastern Europe

Whether the missile defence system or the situation in Georgia and Syria: In several cases the West is dependent on cooperation with Russia. An essential condition for this is an improved transatlantic cooperation between Europe and the US, beyond NATO. This is the conclusion of Heather A. Conley, Karsten D. Voigt, Almut Möller und Stefan Meister. A free trade agreement between Europe and the United States could strengthen this partnership and generate up to four million jobs.

The young middle class that is protesting against Putin knows the Soviet Union only from history books and takes a liberal stance toward Europe. Nevertheless, the idea of Russia following its own path is opposed to an orientation toward the West. How is the history of Russia evaluated in Eastern and Western Europe? Does Russia’s future lie in Europe or in the Eurasian Union? Young experts from Russia and Central and Eastern Europe tackled these questions during the St. Petersburg Dialogue.

Putin and Medvedev’s decision to switch positions has been accepted by the Russian middle class – but massive fraud during the Duma elections in December was the last straw. Thousands took to the streets, with almost 100,000 gathering in Moscow’s Sakharov Center. Is Russia experiencing its own “Arab Spring,” or are the protests ebbing away to a Russian winter? Ponomarev and Cherkessova do not expect a radical upheaval, but they do foresee the gradual development of an active civil society.

Die rege Beteiligung der Zivilgesellschaft und die wachsende Bedeutung der Internetmedien waren für Olga Kryschtanowskaja vom Moskauer Institut für Angewandte Politik die wichtigsten Herausforderungen für die Putin-Regierung im zurückliegenden Wahlkampf. Der teilweise Machtabbau gehöre aber auch zur Strategie der Kreml-Partei, so die Soziologin in ihrem Vortrag, den sie auf Einladung des Berthold Beitz-Zentrums – Kompetenzzentrum für Russland, Ukraine, Belarus und Zentralasien in der DGAP hielt.

Russland bleibt bevorzugter Partner des belarussischen Präsidenten Alexander Lukaschenko, da der große Nachbar Kooperation und Investitionen bietet, ohne politische Reformen zu verlangen. Die Angebote der Europäischen Union dagegen zielen auf eine Modernisierung, die den Machterhalt des Regimes gefährden, und somit für Minsk keinen Anreiz zur Zusammenarbeit darstellen. Wie lassen sich die EU-Belarus-Beziehungen aus der Sackgasse manövrieren?

Russia’s proposal for a “Eurasian Union” has given a new dynamic to the competition between Russia and the EU to integrate the post-Soviet space. Moscow is trying to use the EU’s political and economic crisis to expand its influence. Which prospects for integration are realistic in the post-Soviet region? Are there common interests between Russia, the EU, and their shared neighbors? Where do differences emerge? These questions were discussed at an international expert conference held at the DGAP