Policy Brief #5, 2016
There are more issues that divide Russia and the EU than that unite them. Although both sides support the fundamentals ... ... in the absence of political convergence, and on what EU – Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) cooperation could look like. While the EU and Russia feel the need to cooperate... ... will reverse the current ‘divide-unite’ split in favour of more unity.
Russia and Europe: Somewhat Different, Somewhat the Same?
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On February 9, 2016, the Russian International Affairs Council in partnership with the Delegation of the European Union to the Russian Federation hosted a Roundtable “
EU and Russia: Our Differences, Interconnections and the Way Forward
,” attended by many leading experts from Russia and the EU countries. The reasons for the profound crisis in ...
...
The EU has suffered a series of crises over the past few years, leading many experts to continually predict the downfall of Europe. The Eurozone crisis uncovered a number of economic issues that need to be dealt with in order to improve the overall competitiveness ... ... already been done.
4. Flexible Europe. “Flexible integration”
Recommendations
The current systemic crisis in relations between Russia and the West makes difficult forming longterm priorities with regard to Europe. The events of recent months suggest that ...
... the bilateral dialogue.
Along with the above issues, the authors reasonably propose to initiate cooperation between the EU and EEU, underlining that the latter extensively employs the practices of European integration, while the potential for bilateral cooperation appears fairly high. In fact, the advancement of this potential ... ... hampered by the web of political differences including the Ukraine crisis. However, the Eurasian Economic Union is neither a Russian project nor the new USSR but is rather a state-of-the-art international organization with equal roles for all members,...
... participants argued that Russian support for the National Front undermined the credibility of Russia’s position towards Europe.
From the Russian perspective, there should be at least a clear distinction between support for people’s movements and open support ... ... committing coup d’etat and violating constitutional norms.
The Eurasian Economic Union and the EU
The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), as it was underlined by Russian participants, is aimed at economic integration and has no political ambitions at the moment....
Differences between Russia and Europe have been discussed at length. The fact that these differences exist has taken root in political ideology and social stereotypes in the EU and Russia as well.
The only disagreement concerns the depth of the scission. On the one hand, some believe ...
