Surreale e sovietica

Pensavo che la cosa che mi avrebbe sorpreso di più durante il mio terzo weekend a Tallinn nell'arco degli ultimi due anni sarebbe stato il lapsus della giornalista del tg1, che nel riferire della visita di Napolitano in Grecia, ci spiega che il presidente si auspica il raggiungimento di una politica energetica comune per tutta l'Unione Sovietica.

La cosa che mi ha sorpreso di più, invece, è stata la concentrazione inaspettata e inimmaginabile di Ferrari, Porsche e automezzi di lusso vari in un paese, l'Estonia, che il benessere se lo è conquistato principalmente con la tecnologia e non come il suo vicino orientale, con la petrocrazia.

I Democratici e il rispetto

"I Democratici parlano a nome dei meno ricchi; propongono politiche con delle buone intenzioni per aiutarli; la disuguaglianza li inquieta, e vogliono fare qualcosa per affrontarla. Il problema è che non hanno rispetto per gli oggetti della loro sollecitudine. La loro compassione si mischia al disdegno, quando non al disprezzo."

Così comincia un articolo di Clive Crook sul Financial Times dell'8 settembre. L'articolo riguarda i democratici americani e le ragioni per le quali John McCain potrebbe alla fine anche vincerle, queste presidenziali. Ma provate a leggerlo tutto, l'articolo. Provate ad eliminare i riferimenti al porto d'armi, a Dio e alla differenze fra bianchi e neri. Provate a sostituire i riferimenti a Sarah Palin (la candidata alla vice-presidenza di McCain) con un qualsiasi politico nostrano della destra più populista.

Secondo me troverete diverse ragioni per le quali la sinistra in Italia, Danimarca, Francia e gran parte dell'Europa di questi tempi perde regolarmente le elezioni.

Gli straordinari

Un mio pezzo, pubblicato su EUObserver, con qualche idea per il vertice straordinario sulla Russia. Qualcosina si potrebbe ancora fare.

A basic agenda for an extraordinary summit

FABRIZIO TASSINARI

01.09.2008 @ 19:00 CET

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - There will be much on the agenda as EU leaders convene on 1 September for an emergency summit on the fallout from the Georgia-Russian conflict. The most urgent task concerns Georgia's immediate post-war predicament.

A reconstruction plan, support for a UN-led investigation on the events of the war, and sending in observers or peacekeepers have been among the ideas floated in recent days. They will have to be seriously considered if the EU is to follow up on the timely but somewhat limited peace-brokering efforts of the past weeks.

The larger, and more elusive, question concerns what's next for the EU and Russia. The possibility of imposing sanctions, freezing negotiations on a visa-free deal or even on the broader framework agreement, has generated some misgivings on the usual - and valid - ground that the EU and Russia are too interdependent to be able to just sever their relations to such an extent. But testifying to the significance of the crisis, these options are on the table.

There is room for taking it a step further, and turning the crisis into an opportunity to at least kick-start a long-overdue discussion on the flaws of, and possible solutions to, the EU's approach to Russia.

The most outstanding liability is the notorious lack of coordination within the EU. It concerns different EU institutions, often running their own Russia policy. It afflicts its member states, with their contrasting positions on Moscow. This is not a conundrum that Europe will be able to solve any time soon.

Yet, in order to ensure a more consistent response to Moscow, some sort of code of conduct (or "solidarity" as it's called in Central Europe) on Russia would at last be in order. This should not be a formal, and inevitably watered-down, commitment: the EU has already been there with the ill-fated Common Strategy on Russia of 1999.

It would have to be a more basic list of dos and don'ts enabling Member States to achieve better consultation and swifter coordination, in the event of new crises between Russia and individual countries in the EU or in its neighbourhood.

The recent crisis should also give enough evidence to bury once and for all the pretence of some Europeans that a policy of incentives based on the EU acquis can still provide for the script in the bilateral negotiations with Moscow.

This means that, when dealing with Russia, what the EU is left with is basically the practice of log-rolling between unrelated issues. Euro-purists might roll their eyes at this proposition, but in recent years that has proven to be the only way to get something out of Russia.

The most notable example in this respect is still the 2004 deal, under which the EU gave its go-ahead to Russia's accession to the World Trade Organisation in exchange for Moscow's ratification of the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Such a trade-off, and on this kind of issue is light-years away from today's name of the game. But one only needs to look at the numerous sectoral "dialogues" in which the EU and Russia are engaged to imagine possible combinations.

Shifting the EU's Ostpolitik

Thirdly, the conflict should prompt a shift in the EU's Ostpolitik. The paradox here is that the substance of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is for the time being as good as it gets for the former Soviet countries, and yet the feedback from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia itself over the past years has largely been negative.

Time is ripe for the move that has been floating in EU corridors ever since the ENP was first launched: separate the Eastern European component from the Mediterranean one and call it something else - possibly with the word "integration" in it.

The EU is not exactly known for reacting to crises with powerful symbolic gestures. Any such shift could help push further some existing ENP provisions, but it is unlikely to lead to an EU membership perspective for Ukraine or Moldova in the foreseeable future.

Yet, if further evidence were needed, the war and the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have demonstrated that Russia's assertive posture in the "near abroad" has now crossed the Rubicon. Brussels' incremental and inclusive approach is the only strategic response Europe can provide, and must reinforce it.

Above all, on 1 September, the EU will have to aim for the kind of pragmatism that it has rarely been able to display in its relations with Moscow. Urgency can trigger some genuine unity on Russia. Visible, short-term measures can for once supersede long-term, and often wishful, thinking. The least common denominator among Member States can sometimes deliver tangible outputs. A pragmatic EU, after all, is what Moscow also claims to be interested in - and would most probably not expect.