Learn Hardball, Europe
BERLIN — By the time the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, announced a $15 billion loan and lower prices on gas exports last week for Ukraine, it was clear that he had won the Battle of Kiev.
Clemens Wergin
It was the decisive move: Not long before, at a European Union summit, President Victor F. Yanukovich of Ukraine had essentially offered his country to the West for $20 billion, a deal the bewildered European leaders rejected. They had been negotiating the terms of an association and free trade agreement with Kiev for years; they didn't see why they should raise their offer now.
But if Mr. Putin has won the battle, European diplomats believe they can win the war. In 2015, Ukraine will vote for a new president, and the bet is that a more pro-Western leader can rise to the office.
Still, in order to be better prepared for that next round, the West should take stock of what went wrong this time.
Europe has a major strategic interest in stabilizing its Eastern neighbors, opening up markets for European goods and creating security buffers against Russia. And Ukraine is an essential cornerstone in this endeavor.
The European Union has invested a lot of effort to bring Ukraine into the fold. But it made several mistakes: It underestimated Mr. Putin's willingness to play geopolitical hardball, and once Kiev balked, it failed to counter the pressure that Mr. Putin applied on Mr. Yanukovich and his camp of oligarchs. These contingencies were not hard to foresee. So the question is not what went wrong, but why.
The most obvious answer is that for structural reasons — layers of bureaucracy, multiple national interests — Europe finds fast decision making difficult. But here, Europe also suffered from indecision.
Yes, European leaders wanted to reap the big prize of steering Ukraine toward the West. But at the same time, they didn't want to own Ukraine's problems: its terrible fiscal position, corruption and oligarch-infected political culture. That cuts to the heart of a deeper problem with Europe's policies for bringing in new members since the late 1970s: the conflict between geopolitics and quality.
From a geopolitical point of view, it makes perfect sense to bind Ukraine firmly to Europe, and maybe even offer membership eventually — just as it made perfect sense to take in formerly autocratic countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain in the 1980s in order to stabilize their young democracies. And it made equally good sense to take in large parts of Eastern Europe after 1989, and to pacify the countries of the former Yugoslavia by offering membership opportunities.
But all of this comes at a price. While some new members, like Poland, Slovakia or the Baltic countries, became success stories, others have failed to rise to the standards of Western and Northern European countries. The fiscal crisis of Southern European basket cases like Greece and Portugal stems from a lack of good governance going back decades, while Bulgaria and Romania are ruled mainly by feuding camps of corrupt elites.
Waves of new members over the last decades have lowered the average quality of governance in the European Union, even if some new members raised their game. But even that new, lower average is far better than what you find in Ukraine, which is why Ukrainians are protesting so forcefully against their leader's about-face. They feel robbed of prospects for better institutions that respond to citizens, not corrupt elites.
This also explains why Europe remains noncommittal on final membership. It wants to bind the countries to its east without promising to take them into the European Union. So it has less to offer to places like Ukraine or Armenia, and less leverage to counter Russian pressure.
European governments realize that their publics are worried about the many problems those countries might bring into the union, particularly after the euro crisis hit Southern Europe. They have lost the appetite for taking in ever more institutionally and economically underdeveloped countries.
Europe, in short, suffers from enlargement fatigue. That is why its message to Ukraine was, essentially, to reform now — even at the risk of an economic boycott by Russia — and reap the benefits of greater integration into the European economy later. And all without a clear offer of membership.
Mr. Putin offered gain without pain, at least for now. The Russian president will play the next round just as cleverly as he played this one. If Europe does not come up with new ideas, it is likely to fail again.
How about playing it tough with Moscow for a change? Europe should not heed Russia's continuing request for free travel visas for Russian officials inside Europe. The European Commission should keep pushing antitrust measures against Russia's energy giant Gazprom. And it should defend countries like Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine or Moldova against trade sanctions, Mr. Putin's preferred device for keeping former members of the Soviet Union in check. Moscow has to understand that its bullying comes at a price. And bullied nations should feel more confident that they can rely on Europe's help. Only then will the calculus slowly change for countries like Ukraine and Armenia.
Clemens Wergin is the foreign editor of the German newspaper group Die Welt and the author of the blog Flatworld.
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