Continuity and change in Russia’s policy toward Central and Eastern Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yury E. Fedorov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Strategic Factor ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Security Guarantees ◽  
Former Ussr

The accession of the CEE states to NATO and the European Union has put an end to the geopolitical ambiguity and implicit insecurity in the region between Russia and the socalled ‘Old Europe’. Instead of being an area of great powers’ rivalry, elements of ‘buffer belts’ lacking meaningful strategic options, objects of raw Nazi-Soviet deals, or zones under Russian occupation and domination, the three Baltic States and the Visegrad group countries became full-fledged members of the European Union and were given NATO’s security guarantees. By the middle of the 2000s, one would conclude that traditional geopolitics had ended in this region. However, the changes in the strategic situation in CEE have not changed the deep rooted moving forces and long-term strategic goals of the Russian policy toward the region.Moscow seeks to have the position, as its official rhetoric says, of an ‘influential centre of a multipolar world’ that would be nearly equal to the USA, China, or the EU. With this in view Moscow seeks for the establishment of its domination over the new independent states of the former USSR and for the formation of a sphere of influence for itself in Central Eastern Europe. If it achieves these goals, then Europe may return once again to traditional geopolitics fraught with great power rivalries and permanent instabilities radiating far beyond CEE borders. Yet a few questions remain. Has Russia come to the conclusion that attempting to restore its privileged position of influence in Central-Eastern Europe is wrong? Has Russia enough power to threaten the CEE countries? How credible are NATO’s security guarantees? How may Russian behavior in CEE affect a wider European geopolitical context? These questions are appropriate in the light of Russia’s ‘resurgence’ as a revanchist power and because Russia is, and most probably will remain in the next five to ten years, a weighty economic and strategic factor in areas along the Western borders of the former USSR.

State-led violence in Ukraine’s 2004 elections and orange revolution

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taras Kuzio
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
External Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Orange Revolution ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
Second Wave

The Ukrainian opposition faced one of the greatest degrees of state-backed violence in the second wave of democratization of post-communist states with only Serbia experiencing similar cases of assassinations and repression of the youth Otpor NGO. In the 2004 Ukrainian elections the opposition maintained a strategy of non-violence over the longest protest period of 17 days but was prepared to use force if it had been attacked. The regime attempted to suppress the Orange Revolution using security forces. Covert and overt Russian external support was extensive and in the case of Ukraine and Georgia the European Union (EU) did not intervene with a membership offer that had the effect of emboldening the opposition in Central-Eastern Europe. This article surveys five state-backed violent strategies used in Ukraine’s 2004 elections: inciting regional and inter-ethnic conflict, assassinations, violence against the opposition, counter-revolution and use of the security forces. The article does not cover external Russian-backed violence in the 2004 elections unique to Ukraine that the author has covered elsewhere.

scholarly journals Central-Eastern Europe in Post-COVID-19 International Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Kobrinskaya ◽  
◽  
B. Frumkin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

The article is based on the hypothesis about the transition of the development of international processes from the stage of uncertainty to the stage of the negative certainty – the increase and synergy of the impact of negative factors in the environmental, climatic, epidemiological, socio-economic, technological, and security spheres against the background of worsening geopolitical contradictions and confirmed by the crisis caused by the COVID19 pandemic. The article examines the dynamics of socio-economic and political development and the changing role of the Central-Eastern European region. Having strengthened their positions in the European Union through adaptation to EU policies and norms, by the mid-2010s the CEE countries began to pursue an increasingly independent course. By 2020 their policy became one of the factors hindering the further deepening of the EU integration, primarily in the foreign policy sphere, and the process of federalization of the Union. The analysis of the state of public opinion conducted in the article testifies to the dualism of the perception of citizens of the CEE countries of the EU membership. High support for the EU is combined with frustration at the partial loss of national sovereignty, which is actively used by nationalist political forces in the region. During the early months of COVID-19 pandemics the countries of the region performed better than the EU as a whole, which created prerequisites for reformatting the position of the CEE countries in the EU. The enormous resources provided by the EU to Central-Eastern Europe to overcome the crisis and move towards sustainable development serve as a tool for even deeper economic and political integration of the CEE into the EU. Conditionality of support for the implementation of the EU strategies could have an impact on the CEE countries that is very similar to the period of their accession to the integration grouping and lead to the next stage of desovereignization. Meanwhile, for the European Union closer binding of the CEE countries allows not only to take another step towards federalization, but also to strengthen its actorness in world politics and the global economy.

scholarly journals Exchange rate policy and inflation in the process of currency integration in Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia with the Eurozone

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28
Author(s):  
Dorota Żuchowska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Exchange Rate Regime ◽  
Exchange Rate Regimes ◽  
Exchange Rate Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Rate Policy ◽  
Central Eastern

Among the Central-Eastern Europe countries which joined the European Union in 2004 only three – the smallest (Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia) – joined the Eurozone. Within these economies the process of currency integration was diversified in respect to their previously used systems of exchange rate regimes. Also experiences concerning suppressing inflation and meeting the condition of prices stability varied among them. The aim of this article is to answer the question whether the mode of the applied exchange rate regime has an impact on achieving economical convergence with the Eurozone. I shall compare exchange rate regimes in Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia in the period preceding joining the Eurozone. I shall also examine formation of inflation processes within the conditions of various exchange rate regimes existing in the analyzed countries as well as influence of the employed exchange rate regime policy on satisfying the criteria of convergence by those economies.

scholarly journals EU Initiatives for Democratisation in Eastern Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Renata Kunert-Milcarz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Important Player ◽  
Former Ussr ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Support for democratisation and democracy has become one of the leading topics in a wide-ranging debate over the state of democracy in the contemporary world. The European Union became an important player in global politics, one with an ambitious programme for the spreading and supporting of democracy and the process of democratisation in Eastern Europe. Hence the author’s attempt at addressing the following question: what actions and strategies have and are being undertaken by the EU to facilitate the above-mentioned processes? The aim of the paper is to describe and assess the strategies and actions of the European Union in the field of supporting democratisation and democracy in selected countries of the former USSR (e.g. Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), additionally well-fitting to the concept of Eastern Partnership, in the last decade of XX and the first decade of XXI Century. The paper also aims to present which procedures and standards (that are supposed to guarantee their usefulness and effectiveness) are being used by the EU. The emphasis has been placed primarily on the processes of democratisation, their mileage, specificity and possible strategies for supporting democratic development, as well as its potential for consolidation, in the countries of the former Soviet Union. In order to conduct the research it is necessary to assess the political, social and economic conditions in the researched countries. It is to be stressed that one should be aware of the complexity and dynamics of the described processes whilst evaluating the EU’s initiatives. The papers topic was chosen due to the importance and currentness of the researched EU actions and their results.

scholarly journals Empirical Verification of the Occurrence of Lucas Paradox in the Region of Central – Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (29) ◽  
pp. 7-17
Author(s):  
Agata Maria Górniak
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Capital Flows ◽  
International Capital Flows ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Capital ◽  
Neoclassical Theory ◽  
Random Effects Models ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this article is to study the occurrence of the Lucas paradox in the region of Central-Eastern Europe. According to the research conducted by Robert Lucas (1990), the direction of the international capital flows is different than the neoclassical theory suggests. The capital does not flow from the richer, high-income economies to the poorer, but rather stays in those with the higher capital resources or flows to the other ones with similar level of GDP. The paper verifies whether the paradox appears in the region, in the way that it examines the impact of the GDP on the FDI inflows. Additionally, the study implements few basic models with factors that may potentially resolve the puzzle of the capital flows. The study method is based on panel data estimations, initially using pooled OLS, and subsequently using fixed or random effects models as appropriate. The examined economies are the member states of the European Union, from the region of Central-Eastern Europe, and the examined years are 2000-2018. Based on the literature, and the widely emphasized need for differentiating between the types of international capital flows, the article focus is on the foreign direct investment only, as they constitute large part of the whole global capital flows. Results of the research confirm the presence of the paradox in the region in the examined period. Even though the estimation of the additional models helps to remove the effects of the paradox for the region, it does not fully explain under which circumstances the neoclassical theory would be applicable. None of the applied models reverses the sign of the GDP variable to negative, keeping it statistically significant at the same time.

scholarly journals Shifts in EU Cohesion Policy and Processes of Peripheralization: A View from Central Eastern Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
László Faragó ◽  
Krisztina Varró
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Cohesion Policy ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Steering Mechanism ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
Political Economic

The increasing dominance of neoliberalism as the key steering mechanism of the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s has implied the competitiveness-oriented reshaping of cohesion policy. The aim of this paper is to initiate a debate from a critical political economic perspective on the implications of this shift for Central Eastern European (CEE) member states. To this end, the paper discusses the formation of EU centre-periphery relations from a CEE point of view and formulates some preliminary suggestions as to how cohesion policy would need to be rethought in order to ensure the better integration of lagging CEE regions.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK QUALITY ON THE OWNERSHIP STRATEGY. EVIDENCE FROM EU FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS IN SOUTH AND CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantinos CHOROMIDES
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Multinational Enterprises ◽  
Transitional Economies ◽  
Foreign Direct Investments ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Ownership Strategy ◽  
Central Eastern ◽  
The Impact

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is considered by scholars as a critical factor for economic growth and development. The recent economic crisis in the European Union (EU) has brought up again the discussion of the key drivers specific to the attraction of FDI. In addition to strict economic factor, the literature emphasises the role of institutions in a country as determinants in attracting FDI inflows. This study is one of the first to address the ownership strategy of multinational enterprises from the EU region undertaking FDI in former transitional economies in South (SEE) and Central Eastern Europe (CEE) using the concept of the quality of institutions. An analysis of the impact that the quality of market supporting institutions in determining ownership structure has of foreign affiliates in former transitional economies is attempted using an econometric model on institutional, regulatory, country specific and company level data based on a sample of 285 EU companies undertook FDI in 4 South and Central Eastern European countries during 1995-2015. We apply and advance the institution-based view of strategy by integrating it with resource-based and transaction cost considerations, incorporating three of the most important theoretical paradigms of international business studies.

Poland’s conception of European security and Russia

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafał Lisiakiewicz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Defense Mechanisms ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
European Security ◽  
Central European ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Sensitive Issue ◽  
The Usa

This article examines the problem of contemporary bilateral relations between Poland and Russia. Its thesis largely attributes the rivalry of these two states in Eastern Europe to conceptions relating to the balancing and bandwagoning of power. This rivalry can be put down to the fact that Polish-Russian relations are being developed within broader global processes such as Russia’s relations with NATO, the USA and European Union. The greatest obstacle to the maintenance of mutually beneficial relations is the sensitive issue of security. In recent years Poland has consistently underlined its willingness to reinforce NATO’s mutual defense mechanisms by supporting the organization’s continued presence in Central-Eastern Europe. This issue has been compounded by Poland’s striving to bring the countries of Eastern Europe (especially Ukraine) into closer affiliation with Western institutions favoring European integration, which is evidently perceived as interference in what is regarded by Moscow to be a sphere of Russian influence. This has provoked a number of serious crises in bilateral relations between Poland and Russia since the Euro-Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. Russian plans to install new (Iskander) missile systems close to the Polish border and Poland’s effective attempts post-2014 to extend NATO presence within its own country testify to the scale of conflicts of interest between the two states and the lack of trust afforded by both sides. The issues highlighted in this paper are of great importance, since they not only enable the complexity of Central European issues to be more fully comprehended but also help to elucidate other global actors’ conceptions relating to cooperation with Europe.

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