Europe doesn't need a new agreement with Russia, just yet

There seems to be a widespread consensus on the fact that the EU would greatly benefit from a new comprehensive agreement with Russia. But after leaders from the two sides left the EU-Russia summit last week yet again without progress on the negotiations of such a deal, the opposite argument may begin to look less unappealing: namely, that the EU is better off without the new agreement, for the time being at least.

The key word of those arguing in favour of the new deal is interdependence. Europe is Russia's first trading partner and is increasingly reliant on its oil and gas resources. A new agreement, the argument goes, would cement this interdependence, bringing Russia closer to Europe and, presumably, to its values.

On the other hand, few will deny that relations between Europe and Russia are probably at their lowest point since war ravaged Chechnya in the late 1990s. Estonia is accusing Moscow of waging a cyber-war on its government websites in response to the controversial removal of a Soviet-time war memorial in Tallinn. Poland - the most vocal opponent of the new agreement - is suffering from an eighteen-month embargo on its meat exports to Russia, and Lithuania laments politically-motivated cuts of energy supplies.

If this were not enough, contrasting positions within the EU on Russia produce nothing short of a cacophony. With some EU member states sealing lucrative energy deals with Moscow, while others are over-dramatising the situation for domestic consumption, Russia has become a rather embarrassing black spot in the already impalpable foreign policy of the EU.

It is clear that a new bilateral deal will hardly solve any of these outstanding questions. What is less obvious is that the two sides can go about their business just fine without it.

Indeed, the 1997 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) no longer reflects the reality of bilateral relations between the EU and Russia. Russia is a very different geopolitical animal from the one which the late Boris Yeltsin tried to tame in the 1990s. And so is the EU, which has grown from the fragile twelve-member club that signed the PCA in the mid-1990s, to the twenty-seven-member behemoth of today.

But the two sides have long moved beyond the PCA anyhow. In recent years, the EU and Russia have managed their relations in a fairly pragmatic way, concluding a number of sector-specific agreements on visa facilitation, climate change and even on Russia's forthcoming accession to the WTO (an agreement which now seems to be in question).

In principle, they could go on this way ad libitum. The old agreement does expire in six months but can be prolonged every year. In fact, even if the parties had started negotiations on the new agreement last weekend or at a previous summit, the PCA would have had to be prolonged for a few years until the new deal is concluded.

Perhaps more importantly, a number of 'known unknowns' justify a more cautious approach. First, Russia will hold parliamentary elections in December 2007 and presidential elections in March 2008. Europe never misses a chance to underline that relations with Russia are based on "common values". The way in which these elections will be conducted, and their outcome, will be crucial to verify the solidity of this claim.

Second, there are important discussions under way over energy matters which are fundamental to further developments in the overall partnership.

Third, the new agreement will enter into force only once the parliaments of Russia and of all EU member states will have ratified it. In the present climate, the huge amount of work required for the new agreement might be nullified by a negative vote in any of these parliaments - say of a Central European country.

A new agreement would send a strong signal about the importance that Europe attaches to Russia. But this is not urgently needed, all the more if basic conditions are not there.

After last weekend's debacle, EU leaders will be forced to scale down their ambitions on Russia. In due course, they may come to look at this turn of events less gloomily than they do today.

Fabrizio Tassinari is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen and an Associate Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels.