Nice summit an example of need for EU to speak with one voice

RUSSIA proved to be as difficult as ever for the European Union to come to terms with, and the EU proved to be as unreliable as usual when it comes to dealing with the great bear.

Every country in the union was pleased when the French, holding the presidency of the union, stepped in and took action when the Russians invaded Georgia.

All knew that Russia had been niggling away at Georgia for some time, happily trying to provoke it into doing something silly.

Nobody is particularly fond of the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, seeing him as unreliable but the swiftness and the disproportionate response of the Russians galvanised the EU into action.

The fact that a large country, France, held the presidency of the union was seen as a major help when it came to facing down President Dmitry Medvedev and the man who stands very close to him, Vladimir Putin.

But niggling doubts have grown into whole scale fears following the summit in Nice between the EU and Russia.

Medvedev was ignoring any suggestion that it was time for his troops to finally withdraw to their pre August 7 position. But there appeared to be little insistence on this at the summit while Medvedev said Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was final.

The Baltics especially fear this creeping reach of Russia, which is understandable given their location and that up to 30% of the population of Estonia and Latvia are Russian — and more than 80% in some cities close to the Russian border.

A good indication of this is their support for John McCain rather than Barack Obama during the US presidency election as they feel the Republicans would be more ready to stand up to the Russians than the Democrats.

However it was Lithuania, with just 6% of its population Russian, that held out against the EU reopening negotiations on a revised partnership treaty. These were broken off over the Georgia affair but Britain and Sweden suddenly changed their mind, and at 26 to 1 the EU decided to reopen talks citing the need to push ahead with other important issues such as energy, climate change and trade.

But some think that the French President Nicholas Sarkozy appeared over-eager to get along with President Medvedev at the Nice summit and suggest that he was thinking perhaps of France’s interest rather than those of the EU.

Russia is more than happy to use its near monopoly on the gas pipelines into Europe for its own political and economic ends. They have been very successful in dividing the EU and slowing down attempts at a united front by the union.

They also deploy a neat trick of rather than responding to problems, they collect and line up counter irritants, and add to them making a solution to the real issue more than difficult.

But despite Russia continuing to behave as though it is independent in this globalised world, its economy has been badly hit by the economic crisis and this is compounded by the drop in oil price and its deficit.

As its largest trading partner the EU should be in a good negotiating position. But the summit was yet another example of how important it is that the EU learn to speak with one voice if they are to look after their interests.