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The Dancing Bear
// The price of the question
Lovers' quarrels are soon mended. That may apply to Russia and the European Union as well, for whom love and hate are narrowly separated. Katinka Barycsh, chief economist at the London-based Centre for Economic Reform, has written an insightful book about this love-hate relationship called The EU and Russia: Strategic Partners or Squabbling Neighbours? On the cover of this serious work is a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a person wearing a T-shirt with the emblem of the EU on it shaking mops at each other, as though fighting, but very hard – they're not using knives or nunchaku after all, mop heads don't break human heads. They may squabble today and run off together happily to Sochi, if not the Mediterranean or Adriatic, tomorrow. There at the resort they will use their mops for their intended purpose and throw dirt on each other and clear the floor for a dance they are not quite ready yet to have with each other.
But can the Old World ever reach Russia and make it part of Europe? Peter the Great cut a window on Europe, but the answer to that question remains unknown. Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Peter as Europeanizer, trying to create an all-European home. It would seem that there is something that can done to merge Russia and the Old World and create a Europe that, as Charles de Gaulle put it, stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals. But it's not so simple. It takes two to tango, but that expression does little to convey the complications and contradictions of relations between Russia and the EU. Those relations show that not every couple can trip the light fantastic, even after a few tries. It is not important who or what is to blame for the failure of the partners to mesh. The fact is that Russia and the European Union are not ideal dance partners and remain out of step. So far.
Can the Russo-European foxtrot catch on? The “four common spaces” are laid out like footprints on the floor. Of course, a schematic is not an agreement. One philosophical observer noted that space is a form of emptiness.
In any case, the desire to move forward has not died away and the complex dance steps are still being studied. That is still counts for a lot.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of May 25, 2006
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Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
