RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS: THE NORTHERN EUROPEAN REGION

9. THE NORTHERN EUROPEAN INITIATIVE

SOURCE. Alexander Sergounin (Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University). The US' Northern Dimension? Prospects for a US-Russian Cooperative Agenda in Northern Europe. PONARS Policy Memo No. 232, December 2001. At: http://www.csis.org/ruseura/PONARS/policymemos/pm_0232.pdf

Under Clinton US policy in northern Europe focused on the Baltic states. In September 1997 the US launched a new regional policy under the name of the Northern European Initiative (NEI).

The goal of the NEI is to further regional cooperation and integration in the priority areas of trade and business promotion, law enforcement, civil society building, energy, environment, and public health. The region is defined as comprising Scandinavia, the Baltic states, northwestern Russia, Poland, and northern Germany. Relations are to be strengthened both among these states and between them and the US as well as the European Union (EU).

The author, a well-known Russian specialist on Nordic security, observes that the NEI reflects three shifts in the focus of American security thinking:

-- away from issues of "hard" (i.e. military) security toward issues of "soft" security (e.g. energy supply, crime and corruption, threats to public health and the environment)

-- away from exclusive concern with sovereign states toward emphasis on sub-national and trans-national actors (regional governments, corporations, NGOs, etc.)

-- away from pan-European security toward the security of European sub-regions, now seen as separable, thereby challenging the roles of NATO and the OSCE

On the whole, Sergounin approves of these shifts. He argues, however, that in order to assuage Russian anxieties and win Russia's full cooperation it is necessary to push the first shift further while placing a limit on the second shift. Those hard security goals that remain on the NEI agenda -- specifically that of preparing the Baltic states for NATO entry -- should be removed, and account should be taken of Russian fears concerning territorial integrity, especially with regard to Kaliningrad and Karelia.

But it is not only Russia that has expressed a certain ambivalence toward the NEI. A large section of EU opinion resents too close an American involvement in northern Europe, perceiving regional cooperation as a matter primarily of Russian-EU bilateral relations. France in particular is wary of institutionalizing the US position in northern Europe. Two's company, three's a crowd!

The author points out other weaknesses of the NEI:

* The program is not very clear or coherent. Exactly which Russian provinces are to be considered part of the region has never been defined. High-ranking US officials have made contradictory statements on some issues.

* No single agency of the US government has been given overall responsibility for the NEI.

* The US government has allocated only $2m for NEI projects, hoping that most funding will come from regional governments and the private sector.