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Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat - Vladimir Mitev
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The future of European Union has been a matter of heated debates for years. The second episode of Cross-Border talks takes a close look at the community’s place in international relations… with special focuses to both East and West.
The West,
because we discuss the French-promoted concept of strategic autonomy of Europe. Could the EU play an independent role, outside of the euro-atlanticist model? Which countries look at this idea in favor and which ones still do not feel any need to detach from the umbrella of the US military? How can the EU get more ‘hard power’?
Malgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat and Vladimir Mitev discuss these matters with Sergiu Mişcoiu, a Cluj Napoca-based Romanian expert on international relations, university professor.
And the East…
Vladimir & Malgorzata go on to discuss Eastern Partnership just after the 17th International Batumi conference. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are now recognized as the Associated Trio, the ‘excellent students’ of the European model – unlike Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia who do not seem to be charmed by Europeanization.
What is the European offer for the three countries, whose leaders long for European integration, and whose citizens migrate to Europe, seeing no perspectives at home? Why small and unprosperous countries like Moldova and Georgia are of high interest of the US, and what is Russia’s role in all that?
Further reading:
- 17th Batumi conference on 19th July 2021 – meaning of the event http://www.batumiconference.ge/2021/en/news/17th-batumi-international-conference-enduring-power-of-attraction-when-the-eu-makes-difference
- A view from Brussels on the three countries: does the EU actually want their membership? Key obstacles to the way to integration. On Moldova see: https://pracownik.kul.pl/files/121903/public/calus_kosienkowski_relations_between_moldova_and_the_european_union.pdf
- Georgia’s evolution: from very strong military co-operation with the US to key partnership with the EU; how Russia accepts Georgian way to Europe and not to NATO https://eurasianet.org/in-georgia-has-the-eu-overtaken-the-us
- Europe as a power, European sovereignty, strategic autonomy: a debate that is moving towards an assertive Europe https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/european-issues/0582-europe-as-a-power-european-sovereignty-strategic-autonomy-a-debate-that-is-moving-towards-an
- The EU Strategic Autonomy Debate (what think tanks are thinking?) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/690532/EPRS_BRI(2021)690532_EN.pdf
- The EU’s Strategic Autonomy Trap https://carnegieeurope.eu/2021/03/08/eu-s-strategic-autonomy-trap-pub-83955
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Photo: The French president Emmanuel Macron is the leading proponent of the concept of the EU strategic autonomy (source: YouTube)
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