All Un-Quiet on the Eastern Front

In this springtime of summits, Europe is at it again. Today in Prague, representatives from the European Union’s 27 member-states meet with leaders of six former Soviet Socialist Republics to push forward a concept Brussels calls the Eastern Partnership – a cornerstone in the soft power strategy to build bridges, rhetorically at least, to Europe’s east.

Or at least that was the plan back in March, when invitations to the Eastern Partnership summit were sent out. But the days since have been tumultuous ones in the territories of the six eastern invitees. Whatever its genesis in the minds of Brussels’ Eurocrats, the Prague gathering highlights the limits of soft power in the face of hard realities.

The Prague agenda features a healthy serving of the usual diplomatic mystery meat: stated summit objectives include “institution-building” and “technical assistance programs.” One thing, however, has been most un-diplomatically taken off the table by the EU hosts: whatever the Eastern Partnership may ultimately prove to be – the one thing it is not is a track to EU membership. The EU 27 are not looking to become the EU 33 any time soon.

Whether the former “Soviet Six” will be impressed by this symbolic offer of second-hand status remains to be seen. Several have indicated not only a desire to join Europe but to join NATO (Georgia is hosting a controversial NATO training exercise that began yesterday) – only to be spurned by members of the very EU club who now offer partnership without membership. And in any case, most of the Eastern leaders attending the one-day summit will have other things on their minds – like checking to see whether the tickets that brought them to Prague are one-way or round-trip.

Vladimir Voronin apparently had a fully-refundable ticket, as he scrubbed his Prague trip less than 48 hours from the summit’s start. It would have marked his first trip abroad after Moldova’s so-called Twitter Revolution student protests grabbed headlines, and raised questions about the Communist leader’s claim on power.

Mikhail Saakashvili arrives in Prague as opposition parties back home block streets and rail stations, demanding his resignation – amidst reports of a foiled coup, involving a Georgian tank battalion less than 20 kilometers from Tbilisi, allegedly acting with Russian help. With all that is going on back in his home capital, don’t expect Georgia’s president to turn off his Blackberry during the summit sessions.

At least in the case of Ukraine, both warring rivals – President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – will be in Prague, the better to keep an eye on each other.

But the Ukrainian contretemps look like a schoolyard spat compared to the historical enmity separating Armenia and Azerbaijan’s leaders – the only two of the six “Eastern Partners” to have gone from rhetorical warfare to the real thing in the period following the fall of the USSR. At issue: the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh – the enclave in Azerbaijan that is home to both a 95% Armenian population and a phalanx of Russian “peacekeepers.” Paradoxically, the Armenian and Azeri presidents are likely to use the Prague pretext as an opportunity to discuss easing tensions and even normalizing relations, though the pull there may be a grand bargain with rising regional power Turkey – another nation at Europe’s edge that’s been told not to expect EU membership any time soon.

The most stable leader of the Eastern Six, Aleksander Lukashenko of Belarus – where “Europe’s last dictator” appears as immovable as the Lenin statue in front of Belarus’ House of Government – is another no-show, piqued by a pre-summit statement that his Czech host, President Vaclav Klaus, would not shake his hand should Lukashenko show up in Prague.

Anymore pre-summit excitement, and Prague Partnership photo-op will have to be photo-shopped.

Leaked versions of the draft summit declaration – no summit worthy of the name leaves these things to chance – report that it makes no mention whatsoever of Russia. Yet the gathering takes place under the shadow of the Six’s shared Soviet history – and Russia’s more recent resurgence.

For its part, Moscow has been grumbling about the Prague gathering from the moment of its announcement, as the EU’s “Eastern Partnership” is comprised of the western swath of the former Soviet Socialist Republics, with a total population more than half that of post-Soviet Russia. Given the fractious run-up to Prague, and the EU’s ambivalence about opening its door to the East, it is likely Moscow has stopped worrying about the outcome.

With so much intrigue, the EU may long for these few hours of partnership in Prague to come to a merciful close – so that leaders of the 27 can get back to the economic crisis that has plunged the Union into recession.

But forgetting the East won’t be that easy. Key energy arteries run through the troubled region. Two legs of the B-T-C Pipeline – Azerbaijan’s Baku and Georgia’s Tbilisi – carry Caspian crude to Europe. As Europe knows all too well from this past January, 80% of its Russian-sourced natural gas arrives – or fails to arrive, as the case may be – via Ukraine. Beneath the summit platitudes of shared values, that is the inescapable economic subtext: Belarus notwithstanding, the EU may well need the Eastern Six more than the Six need the 27.

Beset by enlargement fatigue, Brussels seems to be banking on the power of EU allure to hold the Eastern Six in its orbit. But at the eastern edge of Europe, another force exerts its gravitational pull. The session billed as the first-ever Summit of the EU’s Eastern Partnership may be its last – or perhaps the Six will gather again in a not-so-distant future, but next time as the Western Partnership, in a summit staged in Moscow.