56 Europe The EconomistOctober 12th 2019
M
oscow mightas well have drafted the script of Donald
Trump’s leaked call to Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25th. In it,
Ukraine’s president endorsed criticism of his European partners
and seemed open to a deal by which his country would disclose in-
formation damaging to Joe Biden, a possible electoral rival to Mr
Trump, in return for aid in its struggle against Russia’s military in-
cursions. The transcript reinforced Moscow’s lie that Ukraine is a
decadent Western satrapy.
Friends of Ukraine need not worry too much about the call.
Plenty of European leaders, after all, humour Mr Trump on the
phone. But Ukrainians and their allies ought to worry about some-
thing else. A partial thaw in eu-Russia relations, produced not by
the ramblings of an inexperienced Ukrainian president but by
long-term geopolitical shifts, is under way.
On paper, that seems improbable. Russia’s annexation of Cri-
mea, its invasion of south-eastern Ukraine and its shooting down
of an airliner there in 2014 have forged a European consensus in fa-
vour of imposing and maintaining sanctions on Moscow. Bro-
kered primarily by Angela Merkel, these measures still hold to-
gether the spectrum of countries and opinions that ranges from
doves like Italy to hawks like Poland. Russian-backed forces con-
tinue to breach the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and recently seized
Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea. The incoming European Com-
mission is uncompromising on Russia. Ursula von der Leyen, its
president, is a keen transatlanticist. Josep Borrell, the eu’s next
foreign-policy chief, told the European Parliament only this week
that in his view sanctions on Russia should continue. Pro-Russian
political forces in the euare stumbling, and recently left the gov-
ernments of Austria and Italy.
Actions speak differently, however. In June Russia was read-
mitted to the Council of Europe, an institution close to the euthat
monitors human rights, after five years of suspension. As presi-
dent, Mr Zelensky has resumed Ukrainian-Russian prisoner-
swaps and has prompted protests on the streets of Kiev by moving
towards a model for power-sharing in the country’s east that
makes hefty concessions to Russia. Such moves free western Euro-
peans to contemplate a new detente. Emmanuel Macron, the
French president, is urging a thaw in relations with Moscow, in-cluding a summit to resolve the Ukraine crisis, and told his dip-
lomats in August that “Europe will disappear” if it fails. German
firms are renewing their pressure on Mrs Merkel, and have been
keen to build Nord Stream 2, a big new gas pipeline from Russia.
Germany recently sent its business minister to the St Petersburg
summit, Russia’s main economic forum, for the first time since- German authorities are making little fuss about the killing of
a Chechen exile in Berlin in August. eudiplomats are speculating
about a coming relaxation of sanctions. The wheels are turning.
Politically, the euand Russia are as unreconciled as ever. Rus-
sia has shown almost no deference to European demands. Its un-
deserved readmission to the Council of Europe created the danger-
ous precedent of rehabilitation without reform. But the two sides
are converging nonetheless, because another force is at work. Big,
long-term, transcontinental shifts are pushing Russia and Europe
back together.
One shift is that the transatlantic relationship is faltering. Eu-
rope and America no longer feel they can rely on each other to the
extent that they could in the past. Mr Trump has proved an unreli-
able ally, which is perhaps why more and more Europeans talk
about the need for “strategic autonomy”. Any such thing is a long
way off. The London-based International Institute for Strategic
Studies recently estimated that the euwould need to invest be-
tween $288bn and $357bn to be in a position to win a limited land
war with a power like Russia. But now Europeans are starting to
hedge their bets. Standing up to the Russians made sense in the
Obama era, when America credibly underwrote a tough European
line, but Mr Trump’s attitude to Russia and Ukraine is unclear. At
the unlast month, the president blamed Russia’s military action
on his predecessor and encouraged the two countries to sort out
the problem between themselves. The departure of two crucial Eu-
rope-America links—Britain, which is leaving the eu, and Mrs
Merkel, who is in the final phase of her German chancellorship—
only widens the Atlantic rift.
Another driver is the rise of China. Europeans fear that China
and Russia are edging towards the formation of a new bloc that will
dominate Eurasia. Mr Macron’s pivot to Russia is in part intended
to stop it from slipping into China’s grasp. It is better, he argues, to
make some concessions to solve the Ukraine issue and restart rela-
tions with Moscow than to let the world’s largest country by land
mass fall into Beijing’s orbit.
The Middle East factor
Yet some European diplomats suspect that Mr Macron’s true con-
cerns are closer to home. He realises, they say, that Europe’s securi-
ty depends on stopping the likes of Islamic State and that this re-
quires the help of Russia, whose grip on the Middle East is
tightening. It is a credible argument. Russia has steered the Syrian
war and co-opted Iran and Turkey in the process. America is now
pulling out of Syria’s north to let Turkey take charge and suppress
pro-Western Kurds. A Europe that needs a stable Middle East needs
Turkey. And a Europe that needs Turkey, today needs Russia.
A widening Atlantic, a rising China and crisis in the Middle East
are pushing Europe and Russia together. This may be understand-
able, but it is also very risky. The countries wedged between west-
ern Europe and Russia—from Poland to the Caucasus—are under-
standably alarmed by hints of a thaw. European support for
Ukraine matters as a symbol to the world that liberal democracies
will always find allies in the eu. The euis a world power. Its actions
set standards. 7Charlemagne Undeserved detente
EU-Russia relations are starting to thaw