Thread by @SabFis3

1/15 Looking at the outcome of the 🇷🇺 discussion at the EU Summit I have many questions. Why did 🇩🇪 and 🇫🇷 suggest an EU27 + Russia format when this was clearly not going to fly? Why the urgency?

2/15 Why is there so little reference in the Conclusions to the @JosepBorrellF report? Did the 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 initiative distract the chiefs? Did they not consider the EUHR’s suggestions worth discussing? Would the result have been different without the🇩🇪🇫🇷 push?

3/15 Is the idea of high-level meetings with🇷🇺 heretical? The old summit model had exhausted itself long before it was suspended, as @kadriliik rightly says. They were devoid of substance and increasingly at odds with the harsh reality of a deteriorating relationship.

4/15 There is not only no substantive reason to resurrect them. As long as there is no progress with 🇷🇺 on Crimea and the Donbas the EU cannot and should not return to anything resembling this format. On the other hand, there are issues that need to be talked about with Russia.

5/15 Not because the EU, as a matter of principle, needs to engage Moscow in a dialogue (perhaps we should abandon this language altogether). Rather, it is in the EU’s interest to proceed with the fight against climate change and other things, and Russia has a part to play.

6/15 I actually quite like the way the Council Conclusions are phrased: The European Council “invites the Commission and the High Representative to develop concrete options including conditionalities and leverages” for selective engagement.

consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press…

7/15 One way of cleaning up the mess now would be to not only have EU institutions develop the options but also task their leaders to engage in high-level talks with Moscow. 🇫🇷 considers Brussels a nuisance and does its best to cut it out from relations with member states.

8/15 So the latter could empower EU institutions by leaving it to them to prompt Moscow to engage. Not on a regular basis and strictly limited to the few topics that are burning from an EU perspective.

9/15 Plus no change regarding 🇷🇺 aggression against Ukraine or any other disputed issue. A box of sharper tools to react to transgressions is a good thing in this respect. But this would require all 27, without exception, to review their attitude vis-à-vis Brussels.

10/15 @JosepBorrellF report also mentioned visa liberalization as a subject for selective engagement. Like the summits, negotiations on visa liberalization had been suspended in March 2014. So, another brick from the wall? Not quite.

11/15 Russians need to travel to Europe. Once 🇷🇺 has moved out of the Covid-19 red zone (another sad, sad story) the EU should consider easing travel for Russians vaccinated with Sputnik V, even if it is not admitted to the EU market.

12/15 The 🇷🇺 state is busy sealing off society - the EU should do anything in its power to slow down this process. Moscow may not even be interested in new negotiations about visa liberalization. So the EU should consider unilateral action in this regard too.

13/15 Why did Merkel do it? I don’t see her as a “legacy” type of person. That’s more Putin’s department. But she must be worried about the vacuum that is going to emerge in the EU-Russia relationship and the EU’s policy towards the Eastern neighbourhood once she is gone.

14/15 Only think of the first half of 2022: France will have the EU presidency AND vote. What will this mean for the EU’s capability to act, on Russia, Ukraine etc.? So, bad timing, misjudgement of the mood, yes. But she is asking a question we should all think about very hard.

15/15 P.S.: The Corona situation in Russia is deteriorating rapidly. It is really, really bad. Can the EU offer Moscow help with vaccines? Probably another heretic question… End.

*heretical 😬