either to adapt and metamorphose or to give way to new political forces.
The success or failure in this self-transformation or self-annihilation of political establishments will be determined by two more issues. Firstly, they will be judged by the ability to implement the EU Global Strategy, in particular, the thesis of strategic autonomy. The second issue is normalization of relations with Russia and the revival of the concept of strategic partnership between the West and the East of Europe from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
There is one more group of countries – Finland, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland, which adhere to different variations of neutrality. They have played an important role in the modern history of Europe as elements of checks and balances, which support peace in this versatile region. They have made a significant contribution to the de-escalation of various conflicts. The special role of neutrality was demonstrated during the visit of Vladimir Putin to Vienna in June, where the two countries signed an unprecedented agreement on the Russian gas supplies up to 2040. The federal chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen made statements, which in effect run counter to the official policy of Washington and some of its allies towards Russia. However, Helsinki, and especially Stockholm have become a weak link in European neutrality. The sustained efforts of the USA to draw Finland and Sweden into NATO, if not de jure, then de facto, are by no means accidental. The next step in this direction was the signing on 8 May in Washington of a trilateral declaration on expanding military cooperation between the United States, Sweden and Finland. Prior to this, in 2016, both North European countries had already concluded similar bilateral agreements with the United States.
The Euro-Atlantic solidarity is cracking at the seams. That makes the member states of the EU and its supranational structures review their strategic priorities. One of them was expressed in a statement in favor of normalizing relations with Russia, made by Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, at the conference “Re-energizing Europe – Now!” on 31 May. The conference was a concluding event of a major project, involving a number of leading European think tanks5. Growing geopolitical solitude of the EU is pushing the national capitals and Brussels towards revival of the imperative of the pan-European security and common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
The dreams of the orthodox Atlantists of preserving the “liberal international order” led by the United States of the pre-Trump period are becoming ever more intangible. It is difficult to give more convincing evidence of its malaise than the recognition of Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, who calls himself “an incurable pro-American European fanatically devoted to the idea of trans-Atlantic cooperation”6. On the eve of the G7 summit in Canada, he was deliberating whether the new policy of the White House was merely seasonal or a symptom of the breakup of the Western political community7. Shortly before the EU–Western Balkans summit in May, Tusk said that the EU should be grateful to president Trump, “because thanks to him we have got rid of all illusions”8. And, it should be kept in mind that Tusk is a Pole. “Euronews”, the leading news channel of the EU, echoing such sentiments, called the Canadian G7 summit a symbol of the Western world split9. A new term, “G6 plus one”, was coined, reflecting the further erosion of the club’s influence following the reduction of its membership after suspension of Russia's membership.
The relationship between the US and its allies in Europe increasingly resembles the transactional type of interaction, a notion from the world of finance that means a concrete one-time deal. Until recently it was broadly used in the West to characterize the relations with Russia since 2014. In other words, it is a targeted cooperation on agreements, which the West is interested to strike with Russia, for example, the settlement of the Syrian and Ukrainian crises, the salvation of the Iran nuclear deal, some elements of the fight against international terrorism. This type of relationship was officially embodied in the “five guiding principles for EU–Russia relations”, adopted by the Council of the EU in March 2016. These days, the cooperation between the leaders of the Western world with its other representatives is becoming transactional as well.
Trump's way of thinking represents a strategy of a business manager, who primarily is interested in profitability of the enterprise. To be more precise, that is a type of profitability associated with the principles of shareholder economy (the interests of a narrow group of people focused on short-term benefits) in contrast with stakeholder economy. The shareholders for Trump are his electorate and the interests of Trump’s opponents and other members of the Western community become irrelevant. Trump offers a type of a business model, which envisages taking into account as much interests of the US allies as is acceptable for the America’s national interests, interpreted through a prism of Trump’s election promises. And most of them are interpreted in a narrow economy-centered context.
The political landscape of Europe is undergoing a profound change. The drama of Brexit, the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, the fiasco of the G7 summit in Quebec, the intensifying trade war between the US and the EU, new populist governments, this time in Italy, the Catalan and Scottish separatisms, the EU internal quarrels on migration, the solidifying success of “Nord Stream 2” are symptoms of deep shifts in international relations. In general, the ongoing events confirm the emergence of the polycentric model of global governance. They also point to growing awareness in the EU of the need of strategic autonomy. The Russian foreign policy acquires more space for maneuvering in different geopolitical directions.
Quand la Russie revait d’Europe10
Yuri Rubinski
Directeur du Centre d’études françaises à l’Institut de l’Europe, Académie des sciences de Russie
Le dernier dirigeant soviétique, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, rêvait defaire du Vieux continent la pierre de touche d’un nouvel ordre international. Repoussé aux marges de l’Europe après l’avoir tant désirée, la Russie assume désormais sa “solitude géopolitique” et se voit comme un des centres actifs d’un monde multipolaire.
L’état des relations entre la Russie et l’Europe se fait parfois sentir à quelques sensations déplaisantes, comme un fourmillement dans les jambes, à force de patienter dans une antichambre du Conseil de la Fédération de Russie. Le sénateur Alekseï Pouchkov se méfie de la presse occidentale. “S’il s’agit de sélectionner une ou deux citations, vous n’avez que quinze minutes”, prévient-il en nous ouvrant son bureau, et dans un français impeccable. Connu pour animer depuis vingt ans l’émission politique Post-scriptum diffusée sur la chaîne de télévision moscovite TV-Centre, cet ancien président de la Commission des affaires étrangères de la Douma (chambre basse) se laissera interroger une heure et demie.
Depuis l’époque oů il écrivait les discours du dernier secrétaire général du parti communiste soviétique Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, enfermé cinq jours avant chaque voyage à l’étranger dans une datcha avec une dizaine d’autres plumes, de l’eau a coulé sous les ponts. Il juge rétrospectivement que son ancien mentor, “qui n’était que spécialiste des questions agricoles au sein du parti avant d’arriver au pouvoir, a fait preuve de naïveté”. M. Pouchkov est considéré comme un des plus ardents défenseurs de la politique extérieure du président russe et figure, depuis la crise ukrainienne de 2014, sur la liste des personnalités interdites d’entrée sur les territoires américain, canadien et britannique.
De M. Gorbatchev à M. Poutine, sa trajectoire résume celle de la Russie. Le dernier secrétaire général du parti communiste soviétique espérait voir son pays faire son retour au sein de la grande famille des nations européennes. Il s’inscrit ainsi dans les pas des courants occidentalistes qui cherchent à arrimer depuis le 18ème siècle la Russie à l’Europe, à l’inverse des slavophiles prônant une voie spécifique pour leur