EU to Consider Russian Sanctions

Aug. 28, 2008 — -- The Council of Europe has scheduled a Sept. 1 summit meeting in Brussels to discuss whether Russia's attack on Georgia warrants action from the European Union, including the outside possibility of sanctions.

Some member states would not like to see Russia's attack on a sovereign country go unpunished, while others would rather limit their chastising of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to harsh rhetoric and continue with business as usual.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner threatened sanctions against Russia only yesterday, but observers find it hard to define measures that could hurt Russia and not backfire on the EU itself. The EU and Russia have by now become so economically inter-related that Russia is likely to get away relatively unscathed.

The varying stances on how to handle the situation pit some of the EU's newer members against several old union states, all of whom could be impacted by a souring in relations with Russia, which controls much of the area's access to oil and gas.

"Europe must wake up if it wants to avoid another tragedy in the future," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said last night in an interview with Polish TVN24. "Russians had been planning an aggression for a long time."

Saakashvili rejected Russian allegations that the conflict was inspired by the U.S., after Putin recently suggested that the U.S. in effect armed and trained the Georgian army, possibly as a means of manipulating the upcoming presidential election.

"Putin and his KGB buddies use lies as a means of communication," Saakashvili said.

In the interview, Saakashvili thanked viewers for Polish support and said that, "Georgia will never forget what Poland is doing for us."

The trouble for Poland is that many of the old member states of the European Union are also unlikely to forget, and forgive, Poland's involvement. For some of the EU's leading states, France and Germany in particular, a confrontation with Russia is an option they would prefer to avoid at all costs.

There are likely to be strong words, perhaps some assurances for Ukraine, which feels particularly threatened by Moscow's new dynamism, perhaps a suspension of ongoing EU–Russia talks. But little more is likely -- and Russia knows this.

Russian foreign minister Sergay Lavrov told western journalists on Tuesday, "I don't think we should be afraid of isolation, I don't believe that isolation is really looming… I think we are not in for any freezing in our relations."

For the first time after its expansion to the East in 2003, the EU is faced with a situation when the new member states, Soviet satellites during the cold war, are vehemently encouraging the Union to take a tough stance toward Russia -- sanctions included.

"In dealing with Russia you have to be tough and rough," said Polish President Lech Kaczynski in a recent interview. After the Russian incursion into Georgia, Kaczynski and the presidents of other new EU members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia promptly flew to Tbilisi to express their "firm support" for Georgia and its president.

Poland and the three Baltic states openly criticized France President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for their initial "soft, kid-glove" treatment of Russia after its troops entered Georgia. In the past weeks they have been calling for a hard-hitting and unified EU policy. And they are the first to take credit for the EU's now more resolute stance.