A: Mariusz Maszkiewicz

L: Ten years after the launch of the Eastern Partnership we need to ask which parts require a major upgrade and which new tools should be used for this policy to become more effective. First and foremost, we need a deep and honest analysis of the programme’s goals and methods.

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a policy of the EU aimed at the six post-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It was launched in 2009 upon the initiative of both Poland and Sweden, and supported by other EU members. Today, after a decade of its establishment, it is worth going back to the very start of this project and examine the assumptions that went with the initial stages of the EaP’s development. This might help us understand why the EaP has generated so few tangible outcomes and why the aspirations of at least two states (i.e. Georgia and Ukraine) cannot lead to full membership within the European community.

At this point let me also make it clear that this essay is very personal. I participated in the majority of events and discussions that preceded the creation of the Eastern Partnership and its initial phases, when I held a key position within the Polish ministry of foreign affairs.

S: Value-added?

To those who believe the bureaucratic results of the Eastern Partnership – namely, the Association Agreement, the free trade deals, the visa-free regimes and youth exchanges – are a success, I ask the question: “What would be different if we only had the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)?” In other words, what value has the EaP generated apart from the rebranding of an older policy and enriching the technocratic speech? Indeed, when you search for outcomes you encounter numerous analyses, expert reports, and thousands of books. There have been many conferences organised on the topic, with lots of coffee, food, snacks and networking. Millions of euros have been spent on delegations, trips and reports. The EU itself has published hundreds of well-written communiques and a few inane declarations. At the same time, when you look at the region the policy is aimed towards you see that Ukraine is torn by war, Moldova struggles with a deep crisis of corruption, and Georgian territories are occupied by Russia. Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan, on the other hand, seem to correlate their interest in the EaP with their economic interests.

Given the above, I come back to the question: What added value has the EaP brought to the ENP which (with its own budget and tangible projects) constituted an important element of common foreign policy of member states? There is no doubt that some EU member states supported the EaP out of fear of the EU’s further enlargement. In short, they wanted to block further expansion. As a result, the EU’s doors remain closed to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Ironically, these EU countries, who are against an EU perspective to the new members, are now a host to other unexpected guests from outside the EU, who evidently are a burden on their generous social budgets. The arrival of these newcomers was probably not the kind of integration that EU institutions and citizens had envisioned. When we compare the programme document of Eastern Partnership (Prague Declaration – Council document No 8435 of May 7th 2009) with the Regulation (EC) No 1638 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 24th 2006) laying down general provisions establishing a European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument we cannot help but see the conciseness of the former.

Back in 2004 in Poland there was a general enthusiasm towards the idea that, together, the enlargement would allow Europe to return to its roots, as the states that had been “kicked out” of the western political community in 1945 would, once again, become a part of it. At that time, many Poles were convinced that similar overtures should be given to the post-Soviet states. A group gathered around Marek Karp and in the state think tank established by him, the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), had hoped that since that time, EU eastern policy would include Central Europe’s input and expertise. Accordingly they were the ones championing the idea of a stronger ENP in the East. To balance French and German interests in the Mediterranean, Poland advocated for greater support for Ukraine and Georgia, as well as more activities countering Russian propaganda. As a new member of the community in the region, we thought our voice should be heard. That is why we proposed to enforce the ENP with new tools. One of them was an independent television channel in Belarus, which later became known as Belsat.

S: Little support

I was actively involved in setting up of Belsat TV which – as we envisioned it – should have also been expanded to Russian-speakers in Belarus. Bear in mind that all of this was undertaken at a time when Putin’s propaganda was just coming to the surface of the sinking democracy in Russia. Yet the European Commission and its staff were not overly enthusiastic about our ideas and we had little diplomatic support. Instead, EU resources found their way into the pockets of Russian oligarchs who, through their lobbyists in Brussels, convinced the European Commission to finance supposedly independent Belarusian programmes (in Russian!) on the private station RTVi. I often wonder if there had ever been an audit of this wasteful public spending.

In 2007, after the collapse of the first Law and Justice government, a new government was formed in Poland by the Civic Platform and started to review the country’s policy towards the East. While some in the new camp wanted to maintain the previous line, others were pushing for a Polish reset with Russia. Radosław Sikorski, who was then Poland’s minister of foreign affairs, saw the ENP Plus (at that time the name Eastern Partnership had not yet been coined) as a political opportunity. He took the idea from his predecessor, Anna Fotyga, and convinced the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, to join him in the project. There were also talks with other states that shared a similar perspective on Eastern issues.

In the summer of 2008 when I went to Kyiv as a representative of the Polish ministry of foreign affairs with the task of selling the new Polish-Swedish initiative to our Ukrainian colleagues, the question I received from the then deputy foreign minister of Ukraine was: “Why are you doing this? Is it another Russian trick? Is it an attempt to create a new ‘freezer’ for the states that are aspiring to integrate with the EU?” Unfortunately, the fears that decision-makers in Kyiv had at that time are still valid – especially when we take into account what happened at the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, which rejected Ukraine’s membership action plan, or after the Russian aggression in Georgia. Naturally, NATO and the EU are two separate entities. Yet for Eastern European societies, there is little difference in what line they wait, as they know that both organisations can lead them to a safer, yet frozen, world. Back then they saw the doors slammed shut.

As an employee of the Polish ministry of foreign affairs, a vice director of a department and advisor to the minister on Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, I had hoped that the EaP project could become a mechanism to support the transformation processes in the post-Soviet states. I also had the experience of co-operation with the third sector which, in Poland, actually was shaping eastern policy. I also had experience with Belarus during the 1990s, when Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his regime established new standards that justified the breaching of law and democracy by replacing it with interest-driven policies. It was hard not to know that those in Belarus who were pro-democracy were expecting that Europe could somehow support their aspirations. Lukashenka, however, chose the “Chinese model” of development, treating civil society as an unnecessary element in effective management of the terrorised, disoriented Belarusian society. The Polish sector took on this responsibility for two decades, however due to a lack of state funds it had to withdraw. This all shows that if we are to make the EU project truly effective, we have to increase support for the third sector, whose structures are under serious threat in the region.

Putin and Lukashenka, afraid of the civil society, kicked out all important organisations, while some EU states tried to replace them with their own state structures, which are pretending to be independent. This has increased pressure and led to the elimination from the region of the so-called foreign agents who had the chance of being a leverage in the rebuilding of the civil society, self-governance and republican attitudes in the countries that were shedding off their Soviet past.

S: List of mistakes

Let me go back again to the mid-2000s. One of Poland’s most ambitious tasks when it was joining the EU was to make its eastern neighbourhood safer, better-off and more stable. There was no room for ideology-driven policies, considering that development and prosperity in Eastern Europe was not a threat to Poland. Conversely, at the source of expanding Europe into the East was a rational assumption about the need to enlarge the continent’s security zone, which is actually the same challenge we – the whole Europe – face today.

The opponents of the Polish engagement in the East, to strengthen their criticism, have long been using the argument of “Polish messianic gene” using the historical costume of Prometheism. Such interpretation and phrases like “Giedroyc myth”, “Prometheism”, “Polish messianism” have become tools of mockery.

After one year of consultations, the Eastern Partnership was established in 2009. It was declared in a nicely-polished text of an unimportant document. However, the declaration did not go beyond a few pages and nobody, neither Brussels nor the Polish government, was ready to really start a truly ambitious project that would require significant resources and demand extra efforts. Moreover, there was not enough institutional support for the third sector nor were there any ambitious long-term projects that would get deep into the social tissue of these countries. The example of Moldova is a painful illustration that the dialogue between Brussels bureaucrats and the decision-makers in an EaP state can bring little good.

Today, there are only the remains of the EaP – a project that, in my view, was passive, and overassertive. Its establishment was actually more aimed at covering the pro-Russian orientation of Donald Tusk’s government, while for Sikorski it was a trampoline to jump higher into European and global politics. There is a long list of serious mistakes – and ignorance – that characterised the Tusk government regarding the implementation of the Eastern Partnership. Between 2009 and 2015 the Polish government, consciously or not, abstained from intrepid projects on security issues. Tusk sabotaged, ignored, or, at the very best, neglected President Lech Kaczyński’s initiatives in the region. Having said that it is worth pointing out that Tusk’s approach to Russia was not so much a result of his love for Putin but his conformism and calculation – similar to what we saw with other western politicians. In Germany there is an unwritten dogma that Russia is – and will remain – strong. Therefore Berlin should keep good relations with Moscow, even when they are at a cost of weaker neighbours. Such a calculated approach (interest above values) also characterised the then Tusk government. His first visit as prime minister was to Moscow (not Kyiv), and his government initiated the Small Border Movement (which allowed citizens of the Kaliningrad Oblast to travel to northern Poland and vice versa, which was in violation of EU regulations as well as in contradiction with the European principle of solidarity). These policies led to the cooling down of Poland’s relations with Ukraine and Lithuania.

Thus, it was with bitter satisfaction to see Tusk, as president of the EU, posing in Kyiv in February this year as a great supporter of Ukraine’s interest.

From a broader European perspective we can only lament that both Warsaw and Brussels have abandoned ambitious media projects aimed at Russian speakers. Such was the case with Belsat TV, which was neglected by EU institutions and survived as a Polish outlet only. Today, there might be many voices arguing in favour of the need to fight Russian propaganda; however when the first elements of this ambitious project were being built in Poland and Lithuania (between 2006 and 2007) the resources of the European Commission were sent to its competitors. I daresay that EU passivity at that time helps explain the current success of RT and Sputnik.

S: Values and models

Eastern Europeans, who still struggle with an unsuccessful transformation and the poisoned fruits of poorly implemented reforms, desire clear signals from the EU. A lack of which has led some countries to seek new options or value systems. Russia with its idea of “sovereign democracy” and fascination with the model of Chinese prosperity is on the top of the list of alternatives. Only the societies of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova seem to be still adhering to their European dream often against the will of their elites. Yet, generally speaking, the EaP has become a catalyser for two contradictory concepts. The first one directs the region towards Russia – with its quasi-Chinese model or Eurasian economic and political transformation; while the second aims at empowering post-Soviet societies (today this is mainly Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Georgia) that could become an alternative to the corrupt political elite and a force that will undertake the difficult process of transformation.

Thus, the main tools of the Eastern Partnership should empower the Eastern European societies based on the republican model. Such an approach should also not be treated as an ideological sine qua non. Otherwise we will be facing a similar problem to the one that we are experiencing today with the open society model, which has gone through quite a complicated road since the late 1980s. Now, because of its strong left or liberal orientation, it has turned into a burden for the non-governmental sector. As a result, the European right – especially its conservative branch – is deprived of the right to promote social freedom which goes against the republican model. Strangely enough, the same republican model is a part of the political mainstream in the United States. And while looking at today’s world, many academics proclaim the crisis of liberalism, yet they do not answer the question as to whether the source of the current situation could be found in a too soft departure from communism. Stalin and his spectre are clearly still haunting the EaP states and unless we get rid of this “ideological vampire” we cannot speak about the implementation of European values. However, if we assume that democracy is not a goal but a tool to implement a value-system, problems will continue to come to us from different sides.

Nevertheless, those who were against empowering Eastern European societies or thought that there was no contradiction in the two concepts of the EaP were proved wrong in 2014 when the Russian Federation brought war to Ukraine. This event only confirmed the words of the late Jerzy Giedroyc who famously said: “There is no free Ukraine without free Poland, and no free Poland without free Ukraine.” To put it even more explicitly, security and independence of Poland are at risk when its eastern neighbours – Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus but also Georgia and many other post-Soviet states – are oppressed or at war with Russia.

S: Youth focus

We should now ask which parts of the Eastern Partnership require a major upgrade, and which tools should be used for this policy to become more effective? First and foremost, we need a deep and honest analysis of the programme’s goals and methods. This should be the task of the new European Parliament and EU institutions. Given that the process of building bridges in international relations is not merely a result of relations between institutions and high level bureaucrats, but also a reflection of the network of connections, policy-makers should seek to allow for that to develop. Such a change will also break down barriers and thereby eliminate nationalistic or chauvinistic attitudes.

So far two main mechanisms have proved useful in this regard: 1) programmes that offer scholarships, study/work abroad opportunities and cultural projects; and 2) youth programmes that are made up of development aid projects, humanitarian projects, cultural and social projects, internships and professional study tours, media activity, etc. Therefore these two mechanisms should be further strengthened with generous financial resources. Also, there is a need for the simplification in the system of government grants which should be better tailored toward the needs of NGOs (there is a constant problem of a lack of financing for small organisations as well as the financing administrative costs of NGOs).

To put it simply, young people who are passionate about Eastern Europe require the financial support much more than ineffective bureaucrats. There is no consent for the big fish to eat the small ones, or for the pseudo-NGOs, with their large offices and multi-year financing, to function as machines for re-granting. They take advantage of smaller organisations and use the work of enthusiastic people to strengthen their own institutions.

When all is said and done, while the EaP remains a useful project, it calls for a serious upgrade. This means that the parts which are good and have proved effective should be kept, while the formal, inflexible and outdated mechanisms should be eliminated. The EaP ought to obtain a separate and much more modest bureaucratic apparatus (within DG or the European External Action Service) whose goal would not be to find organisations to conduct re-granting, but build coalitions around macro projects. Such coalitions of public institutions and private players could then get financing for non-ideological projects.

A good example here is a very modest, yet very effective activity of the Polish diplomat, Jerzy Pomianowski, who was placed by Sikorski as an executive director of the European Endowment for Democracy. Unfortunately, from the very beginning he was left alone, and neither the Polish government nor the ministry of foreign affairs offered him adequate support or help. From the very beginning the Polish government was behaving in a very restrained manner, while the diplomatic service did not feel like helping the project which was in Brussels, far away from their desks. Even the whole construction of the EED is for many people hard to accept as the project has had to constantly fight for approval and allies for micro activities, instead of having a large support for macro-projects from many strong players in the EU.

The second such example is Belsat, which despite large negative activities of government institutions, and even at times its co-founder, has passed the test of time and is a good start for a wider media project. It would be desirable to expand this project so that it could become a place of employment for many honest journalists from post-Soviet states. Many of them suffer from very low standards of living or persecution.

The final, third, example are large educational projects. In this area there is a lack of determination not only on the part of the Polish government to support those that will lead to the strengthening of the European and Euro-Atlantic model of education. With increasing digitalisation of the world, this does not need to be a costly endeavour, but one that requires a strong support of state and EU institutions.

Mariusz Maszkiewicz