The EU-Russia Borderland

New Contexts for Regional Cooperation

Heikki Eskelinen, Ilkka Liikanen, James W. Scott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415552479
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136213519
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were high hopes of Russia's "modernisation" and rapid political and economic integration with the EU. But now, given its own policies of national development, Russia appears to have 'limits to integration'. Today, much European political discourse again evokes East/West civilisational divides and antagonistic geopolitical interests in EU-Russia relations. This book provides a carefully researched and timely analysis of this complex relationship and examines whether this turn in public debate corresponds to local-level experience – particularly in border areas where the European Union and Russian Federation meet.

This multidisciplinary book - covering geopolitics, international relations, political economy and human geography - argues that the concept 'limits to integration' has its roots in geopolitical reasoning; it examines how Russian regional actors have adapted to the challenges of simultaneous internal and external integration, and what kind of strategies they have developed in order to meet the pressures coming across the border and from the federal centre. It analyses the reconstitution of Northwest Russia as an economic, social and political space, and the role cross-border interaction has had in this process. The book illustrates how a comparative regional perspective offers insights into the EU-Russia relationship: even if geopolitics sets certain constraints to co-operation, and market processes have led to conflict in cross-border interaction, several actors have been able to take initiative and create space for increasing cross-border integration in the conditions of Russia's internal reconstitution.

1 On the edge of neighbourhood

Regional dimensions of the EU–Russia interface

Heikki Eskelinen, Ilkka Liikanen, and James W. Scott

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, hopes of Russia’s ‘modernization’ and rapid political and economic integration with the European Union and other neighbouring European countries ran high in the West – and in Russia as well. The 1997 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between the EU and Russia can be seen as a concrete manifestation of this optimism. Spurred on by the PCA and EU programmes such as TACIS (Technical Assistance for the Community of Independent States), co-operation networks extended from EU member states into Russia and provided technical aid, training, and infrastructure. By the end of the 1990s, it appeared that this momentum would be maintained and that a close relationship based on common concerns and agendas could be consolidated between a ‘democratizing’ Russia and an ‘empowering’ EU.

Since the turn of the millennium, however, the situation has become much more complex. Issues of sovereignty, national interests, and identity, which many had hoped would be subsumed within a spirit of co-operation and border transcending, have again enjoyed highest political priority. Since Putin’s accession to power in 1999 in particular, Russia has re-embraced notions of ‘Eurasianism’ and defined its geopolitical identity in opposition to the EU’s proclaimed doctrine of ‘soft power’ (Golunov 2011; Morozova 2009). At the same time, the European Union has embarked on a political agenda of securitization and border management which has created a formidable barrier at its external frontiers: Schengen visa restrictions for Russian citizens and re-admission requirements targeted at illegal migrants from third countries are but two manifestations of this trend. In many ways, EU–Russia relations therefore represent the ultimate challenge to regional partnerships as envisaged by the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Partly as a result of this, and given the country’s specific trajectories of national development, it has become increasingly common to conceive of Russia in terms of its ‘limits to integration’, and given the country’s specific trajectories of regional development. Similarly, much European political discourse has again begun to evoke the spectre of East–West civilizational divides and antagonistic geopolitical interests (see, for example, Prozorov 2006 and Joenniemi 2008). Western observers, for example, often emphasize the problems of Russia’s democratization, its weak civil society and violations of human rights (Howard 2002; Richter 2008), thereby reinforcing the perception that the border between Russia and the EU is one between irreconcilably different political cultures and values. As Iver Neumann (1999) has convincingly demonstrated, the interpretation of Russia as a European ‘Other’ has been used to promote the notion of a European Union identity. Intellectually, tendencies still persist among geopolitical thinkers in the West to propagate spurious notions of Russia as an ‘eternal nemesis’ (Kangas 2011).

From the standpoint of EU geopolitics, Russia is often seen as a vast and ambiguous space between ‘Core’ Europe and Asia, and the politically and culturally divisive question as to whether, and to what extent, Russia is a European country has given rise to never-ending political and scholarly debates on the country’s geopolitical role and standing (see, for example, Tsygankov 2007). The current discourse on Russia’s geopolitical strategy and foreign policy with regard to the EU reflects the very same dilemma. According to Prozorov (2004a), Russia’s position has oscillated between the ‘problematization of exclusion from the European space’ and an ‘affirmative self-exclusion’. This dichotomy arguably reflects tensions between social modernization and the consolidation of state sovereignty. From a geopolitical perspective, these tensions derive from the fact that increasing interdependencies with the rest of the world, especially with the EU, are the sine qua non for Russia’s modernization, whereas Russia’s striving for greater sovereignty and great power status emphasizes the opposite dimension – protectionism (Pursiainen 2007).

Given this situation, the long-term perspectives as well as the institutional basis of EU–Russia relations can be subject to considerable speculation. This is especially the case if such speculation is based on traditional understandings of international relations that privilege a state-centred view of geopolitics and ‘national’ interests. Such understandings often marginalize the significance of regional and local levels as political arenas. Similarly ignored is the role of social and cultural dialogue in mediating between states. An alternative to the traditional assumptions of international relations can thus be offered by a greater local focus. Despite considerable obstacles to greater political dialogue at the level of ‘high politics’, local and civil society-driven cross-border co-operation between Russia and the EU, for example, has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Belokurova 2010).

Building on both Finnish and Russian experiences, this book aims to contribute to the broader ongoing scholarly debate on the prospects of, and limits to, Russia’s growing interdependencies with the EU. Examined at the level of border regions and everyday interaction across the Russian–Finnish border, key arguments concerning Russia’s limits to integration reveal their multidimensionality and internal contradictions. A closer look at the European North reveals several areas where border regions have embarked on new forms of economic and social interaction that are bringing Northwest Russia closer to its neighbours and redefining its role in Europe and with respect to globalization.

Northwest Russia: a regional perspective on transformation

One of the arguments put forward in this book is that the experiences of Finnish–Russian border regions cannot be understood in terms of simple geopolitical dichotomies, such as integration versus protectionist ‘self-exclusion’. From the regional perspective, it can be argued that the idea of ‘limits to integration’ has its roots more in geopolitical reasoning than in the analysis of recent developments on and around the border. Behind geopolitics, domestic rationales that have little to do with regional level development can be found on both sides: problems of consolidating Russian federal relations, on the one hand, and the perceived need of the European Union to stabilize its political community, on the other. In principle, the EU is still actively promoting policies of cross-border co-operation, the goal of which is the creation of a ‘wider Europe’, but clearly in the more cautious terms of building a ‘new neighbourhood’. Similarly, the Russian version of a ‘limits to integration’ concept seems to stem more from domestic concerns about federal relations than from problems of the border regions.

As Pirjo Jukarainen, a contributor to this volume, argues, ‘understanding Russia’ involves understanding the country’s post-Soviet transformation in broader social and cultural terms. Despite Northwest Russia’s salience as a laboratory of EU–Russian co-operation, very little has been published on the ongoing transformations in this region for a wider European and international audience.¹ Some of the reasons for this are evident: access to empirical data is often difficult and linguistic issues tend to limit the dissemination of research above and beyond Finnish and Russian academic circles. In addition, interdisciplinary regional studies remain largely focused on Western Europe. This tendency not only downplays the significance of the ‘North’ and ‘East’ in the development of the European Union but also overlooks a rich source of local knowledge on changing political contexts for co-operation between the EU and neighbouring regions.

Northwest Russia, and more specifically cities and towns located close to Russia’s western borders, are not necessarily representative of the country’s more general societal transformation. However, the region provides a nuanced perspective from the ‘periphery’, a perspective developed in the various contributions to this volume and which covers socio-economic and cultural change, emerging regional identities, the role of civil society in social transformation, and processes of cross-border co-operation. Identity issues, for example, are by no means limited to national belonging and politics of national memory. Processes of regional transformation have highlighted the existence and potentialities of multi-level (i.e. local, regional and national) identities within states as well as emerging transnational identities at the local level (Enyedi 1998; Kennedy 2002; Popescu 2008). With the establishment of greater regional political autonomy and the end of Soviet-era redistribution mechanisms, regions have become new domestic and international actors. Political actors in the Russian Northwest have thus attempted to adapt to the challenges of simultaneous internal and external integration and to the pressures emanating from across the border and the federal centre. In the case of the Finnish–Russian border region, this has gone hand in hand with ‘identity politics’ that capitalize on regional specificities and historical or cultural traditions.

Indeed, Northwest Russia can also be partially understood as a Nordic–Russian borderland where social interaction and project-oriented co-operation have generated new logics of economic and social development, including notions of a common cross-border region. One important aspect in this context is the use of symbols and historical narratives that give substance to claims of a unique cross-national heritage. In the case of Finnish–Russian Karelia (see Map 1.1, p. 4), the increasing complexity of societal interaction has in fact transformed Karelia from a static ‘borderland’ of national histories to a more ‘lived’ space of Finnish–Russian relations. As Alexander Izotov argues in his contribution to this book, the case of Sortavala, a border city in Russian Karelia, offers evidence of individual and group ‘repositionings’ in which the new openness of the border has elicited a cognitive remapping of the world and of Russian–Finnish relations.

Map 1.1 The Finnish–Russian border region (source: Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland).

It is of course important to mention the structural and economic situation of the Finnish–Russian border region, including the area known as Karelia. Regions along the EU’s external border share problems in terms of ‘peripherality’ and challenges to their future development. As the EU Commission’s Fifth Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion (2010) documents, imbalances between Europe’s core areas and its vast peripheries remain despite increases in general welfare, and the depopulation of many rural zones continues unabated. Furthermore, as the EU report Regions 2020 (Commission of the European Communities 2008) indicates, most (external) border regions in southern and eastern Europe are subject to multiple vulnerabilities and globalization challenges. Low labour productivity, high unemployment, little economic diversification, and overall demographic decline in many areas are just some of the problems that exacerbate this regional vulnerability. For the Finnish–Russian case, Table 1.1 indicates large disparities in GDP and population densities both within the region and on both sides of the border. While the metropolis of St Petersburg is the great regional exception, towns in Karelia are few and rather small. The weak urban network on both sides of the border underscores regional dependence on a few vital industries, forestry, paper production, and mining in particular.

Future development potentials of border regions such as the Finnish–Russian one will generally emerge against a backdrop of considerable structural, financial, political, and cognitive constraints. These regions are, by and large, not only far from the dynamic centres of Core Europe, but are often distant from prosperous national centres as well. In addition, neighbouring regions on the other side of the border are similarly disadvantaged, which results in ‘double peripheries’ within a greater European context (Topaloglou et al. 2005). These regions are thus also potentially areas of serious social problems, especially if living standards continue to stagnate. Preliminary research has indicated that increasing interaction with neighbouring states such as Russia (including Kaliningrad), Belarus, Ukraine – and beyond – could have a major impact on the development perspectives of these regions, in both positive and negative terms (Petrakos and Topaloglou 2008).

In positive terms, these border areas are often part of important transcontinental road and railway networks (although mostly distant from major airports). To the extent that they develop locational strengths beyond forming mere transit spaces for goods and people and providing infrastructure, co-operation within urban networks on both sides of the border could contribute to economic dynamism and socio-cultural development. However, such development perspectives cannot be separated from those border-related problems that necessitate effective security and border-management policies. Environmental problems, the illegal trafficking of humans, the smuggling of harmful goods, illegal immigration, and more general cross-border activities of organized crime must be dealt with decisively.² It is these European and national concerns, rather than local interests, that affect economic, political, and legal barriers, such as those inherent in labour market and foreign resident legislation, and that, ultimately, affect socio-economic mobility, innovation transfer, and flexibility.

Table 1.1 Population and GDP per capita in Finnish–Russian border regions

Thus, for several reasons the Finnish–Russian border is a suitable context for the investigation of socio-spatial transformations in post-Soviet Russia and emerging cross-border interaction between Russia and the European Union. First, this part of the EU’s external border was the first land border where the EU and the Russian Federation met in 1995, and was in fact the only one of its kind until the 2004 enlargement. Second, the Finnish–Russian border differs in interesting respects from those borders which the EU and Russia have shared since the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. From a geopolitical perspective, the significant difference is that mutual relations on this border have been well-established for a long time, and the shadow of history is not as dark as on Russia’s new borders with the Baltic states. On this basis, it can be assumed that the Finnish–Russian border provides relatively favourable preconditions for interaction between Russia and the EU and can thus serve as a test field for various novel forms of co-operation. Yet even here the border-related political, economic, social, and cultural differences remain large, and the border itself is still strictly controlled. Increasing interaction and co-operation have not resulted in major changes to this basic setting. Rather, they have made it visible to a much larger number of people on both sides – eliciting new forms of economic and political dialogue and of entrepreneurship. Third, the Finnish–Russian border is long (1,300 kilometres, or about a third of the East–West border in Europe) and, for this reason alone, highly differentiated conditions can be found on both sides. This implies that the forms and intensity of border-spanning activities vary to a major extent, giving rise to different forms of linkages.³ In terms of the new borderland situations that are emerging on the EU’s external frontiers, the Finnish–Russian case offers some of the most compelling evidence of attempts to create common regional frameworks for social and economic development, which have thus been shaped both by a will to promote mutual interests and by the elimination of structural, political, and cognitive barriers to successful co-operation.

Consequently, the prevailing realities in border regions are complex and call for research approaches that take into account actors’ incentives and local opportunity structures: a large group of political, business and civil society actors in these regions have their own specific interests with respect to the neighbouring region. For many, cross-border links offer new opportunities. At the same time, there are also influential actors for whom cross-border links represent threats. This setting is further complicated by the fact that some forms of cross-border interaction receive backing from the prevailing policy strategies and programmes of the Russian Federation or the European Union and Finland. In addition, prerequisites for establishing cross-border links vary in border areas due, for instance, to major differences in socio-economic and spatial structures as well as in demographic conditions. Against this backdrop, it is understandable that cross-border links have emerged in the form of complex actor networks criss-crossing various geographical scales, and their composition and paths of development have varied in changing politico-institutional and economic conditions. Here, it is important to emphasize that those involved in border-spanning activities are not only adapting to prevailing circumstances and the rules of the game at each particular moment of time. Ultimately, they launch and test new initiatives, create more permanent structures and thus, for their part, reconfigure the relationship between the EU and Russia. This, as a matter of fact, is the main message of this book.

In investigating the multi-layered setting outlined above, this book specifically scrutinizes how Russian regional actors have adapted to the challenges of simultaneous internal and external integration, including the strategies they have developed in order to meet the pressures and to respond to incentives coming across the border and from the federal centre. The geopolitical perspective is complemented by an analysis of the reconstitution of Northwest Russia as an economic, social, and political space and of the role that cross-border interaction has played in this process. The conclusions offered here illustrate how a comparative regional perspective can contribute to more nuanced interpretations of the EU–Rus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 On the edge of neighbourhood: regional dimensions of the EU–Russia interface
• Part I: Northwest Russia: regional contexts of political integration
• Part II: Processes and actors of cross-border interaction
• Part III: Northwest Russia: an arena of socio-cultural transformation
• Bibliography
• Index