EU Needs to Unify

New Polish PM Donald Tusk has urged the EU to unite in its dealings with Russia and not to let particular interests of member states to dominate (i.e. Polish-German gas pipeline under the Baltic), in a guest column in a German newspaper published Monday.

"The sooner all the countries in the union realize that a united voice in foreign policy is important, the better the relations of the individual countries and of the union as a whole to our large neighbour in the east will develop," Tusk wrote in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Member states and large companies were currently charting separate courses, Tusk said. "There is no question of coherence here. Divergent interests, or even rivalries, are the order of the day," he said.

He warned in particular that the EU could lose the initiative to Russia in the key area of energy policy, with the result that European energy companies and European citizens would pay more for their energy.

Russia had no interest in pursuing the modernizing European model, but was more interested in establishing its own identity, as was shown by the divergent views on Kosovo, Tusk said.

On competition between the EU and Russia regarding Eastern European countries, he said the sovereign will of the countries concerned was not being taken into account. The EU's response to reforms in Ukraine, Moldavia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and potentially Belarus, should be to offer the prospect of membership, the Polish prime minister said, pointing to the enlargement of the EU in recent years.

The Treaty of Lisbon, signed last year, called for a strong partnership aimed at solving global problems, such as weapons of mass destruction, climate change and international terrorism, and opened up fresh prospects in relations with Russia, he said. The EU and Russia were more than neighbours, and both sides should have the courage to work out a particular kind of strategic partnership, Tusk said. The prerequisites for this were clear and transparent ground rules, he said.

Source: DPA 2-18-08