Centar za Bezbednosne Studije

The European Union’s remaining policies that suggest continued enlargement include, essentially, the countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process (including Serbia and the countries of the Western Balkans) and those of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Hopes are high not only in the former, but also in the latter, as reforms are underway and the overwhelming spirit of “harmonisation with the EU” dominates the legislative and public policy agendas. The same is the case with Turkey, which is a candidate country, but whose membership also meets with more than a few raised eyebrows amongst the European policymakers.

Despite these hopes, the EU may well need to reform its institutions and “reinvent itself” in an important way prior to enlarging any further. The current 27 members pose formidable governance and management challenges, and expanding the membership to include countries that are not yet ready may not be feasible.

A further enlargement to the East and South would challenge the EU identity. Althought many will admit that nobody in fact knows what that identity is, clearly it exists and its changes are a process that requires careful management. The issues over the European Constitution have highlighted dilemmas of whether the European identity is primarily Christian or not, but this is not the only dimension of identity. Security identity is an increasingly important aspect of the European’s feeling of ownership of their countries and the Union as a whole, and subjective perceptions of security do not correlate well with the prospect of further EU expansion.

On the other hand, failing to enlarge has a very clear price in geostrategic terms. If the SSA Process countries, Turkey and countries on the southern European frontier are pushed away, they may well gravitate towards Russia (in the case of the Western Balkans), or towars Iran (in the case of Turkey, where suspicions of the EU are rising and EU influence is faltering at the moment). The question in the context of deciding not to further enlarge seems to be whether EU borders can be moved (if Croatia is accepted in 2014 and no other countries are included in the enlargement) without being removed altogether (which is the equivalent of accepting all SAA countries, Turkey and, in the future, the southern neirghbours, including the countries of North Africa. Furthermore, the question is whether there is a way to ensuring that a moved border does not turn into a faultline?

Perhaps there is a way for the EU to accomplish this goal without enlarging any further. This may include the fostering of a greater transparency vis-a-vis the aspirant countries, making sure that the relationship with them is honest and that the quality of life in these countries is able to improve regardless of the absence of EU membership, while making it clear that no further enlargement is forthcoming in the foreseeable future. Such an approach would target more directly the pervasive corruption and criminalisation of public life in these countries, and would unfold from a changed and less supportive EU policies towards some of the corrupt elites in countries across the current European frontiers. An increasing quality of life, with adequate institutional and intellectual support by the EU, might prove more productive than an essentially corrupting series of promises of membership that it may not be possible to fulfil due to the EU governance issues and those arising from challenges to its collective identity.

A related issue is whether there is a way to make Russia feel more secure by re-examining the prospects of NATO expansion. This expansion is closely related to the EU expansion and in the case of the latest additions to the EU preceded their admission to the Union. It should be observed that Russia currently has two defence doctrines, the conventional and the nuclear one. The conventional doctrine is based on the absorption of a first conventional strike by the enemy through the depht of the Russian territory, a cummulative mobilisation of the conventional forces, and expulsion of the enemy outside the Russian Federation. If, however, the Ukraine is accepted into NATO, this would mean that Moscow Military District would become the first line of Russian conventional defence. In other words, there would no longer exist a depth of territory required by the conventional doctrine, which would leave Russia with only one feasible defence doctrine, namely the nuclear one. This doctrine is fairly self-explanatory, as it is formulated as “extended deterrence and first strike”.

Russia is already positioning itself through the planned military base in the Serbian town of Nish, which is presently tentatively described as being staffed by the “emergency personnel” from Sergey Shoygu’s Ministry for the Emergencies, but it is little known that this Ministry has an “internal army” of 50 000 soldiers, including the air force and rapid reaction forces that are considered more battle ready than many units of the regular Russian Army. In addition, there are widespread speculations that the entire length of the new South Stream pipeline through Serbia will be guarded by the Russian Army, and it was only a week ago that tentative confirmation was issued by Serbian Minister of Energy that discussions are underway concerning the building of a Russian power plant in the East of Serbia, near Kostolac. All the agreements were apparently reached during President Medvedev’s October visit to Belgrade, and the staffing of the planned base is not final, as Minister Shoygu declined to say definitively whether or not it will house only soldiers from his internal army and referred the question to Medvedev. A military base on the track of the gas pipeline guarded by the Russian security forces, and a nuclear power plant nearby, when added together, produce a very clear and highly explosive strategic cocktail. This clearly suggest that Russia is taking active measures to protect its security interests vis-a-vis NATO’s possible further expansion, by drawing its military capacities very close to the EU.

Divorcing EU expansion from NATO expansion may be the only strategically justifiable option in the coming years. While it is true that the EU cannot passively watch what happens to the Georgian civillians in a conflict with Russia, for example, one should be mindful of the old principles formulated by the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu in his Art of Warfare, which, among others, include:

1. There are battles not to fight,

2. There are enemies not to take on, and

3. When you are winning, always leave your enemy a route of escape. Otherwise, he will have no other option but to fight to the last man.

Russia should be allowed to have an escape route, and that involves no further NATO expansion into its neighbourhood. If this decision is reached, then perhaps it is possible to avoid a security dilemma unfolding in the case that the EU, quite justifiably, decides that its expansion potential may not be sufficient to accept the countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey at this time.

Aleksandar Fatić

Director of the Centre for Security Studies, Belgrade