Russian test finds EU wanting

Member states seek to resolve differences over how to respond to invasion.

Russia’s invasion of the Crimea has exposed deep splits between the European Union’s member states over how to come to the aid of Ukraine. An emergency summit of national leaders in Brussels today (6 March) will attempt to close those differences but is unlikely to resolve them.

The leaders will be repairing splits that surfaced at an emergency meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers on Monday (3 March) when they failed to agree even a suspension of routine business with Russia, which had deployed soldiers without insignia across Ukraine’s Crimea last Friday (28 February). That move was described by the foreign ministers as one of a series of “acts of aggression” against Ukraine.

The ministers’ inability to agree on the freezing of relations with Russia forced Herman van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, to call a crisis meeting of prime ministers and presidents for today. It is left to them to decide to suspend business with Russia or whether to go further by imposing sanctions such as an arms embargo and measures against individual leadership figures in Russia.

The national preoccupations of individual member states that emerged on Monday are likely to resurface today as well.

On Monday, Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a social democrat, was nearly alone in rejecting the immediate freezing of standard co-operation with Russia, including the suspension of slow- moving talks on a framework agreement and an easing of visa procedures for Russians. Draft conclusions drawn up before the meeting show that all member states’ ambassadors to the EU had agreed that institutional work should be put on hold.

An arms embargo proposed by Sweden was blocked by one small state on the grounds that it would be merely symbolic, given the scale of Russia’s arms industry. Diplomats discounting that argument point to reports that Russian troops in Ukraine have been using Italian-made vehicles.

The UK is seeking to protect its financial industry against the impact of possible asset freezes against Russian officials. The UK’s Guardian daily on Monday published a snapshot of a comment scrawled on the draft conclusions that indicated that the British government would seek to ensure that Russians would not be cut off from London’s financial centre.

The United States is looking for European unity to block Russia exploiting real or apparent divisions between the allies, and within the EU, as it has done in the past. This will play into deliberations today, as will the European Council’s interpretation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions since Monday. The EU foreign ministers on Monday threatened sanctions “in the absence of de-escalating steps by Russia”.

National leaders are likely, like the EU’s foreign ministers, to emphasise the international mediation, possibly by the United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe. Miroslav Lajcák, Slovakia’s foreign minister, said on Monday that it should be difficult for Russia to refuse any role for three organisations of which it is a member. But in his most extensive public comments, on Tuesday (4 March), Putin made no reference to the possibility of international mediation.

International mediators and monitors would be working under intense time pressure, as pro-Russian authorities in Crimea have called a referendum on secession from Ukraine for 30 March.

For the time being, the focus is on what steps the US and the EU take. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov yesterday in Paris. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, met Lavrov in Madrid on Tuesday (4 March). She released no statement.

The EU’s national leaders also face time pressure from Ukraine’s new government, which would like to press ahead with the signature of an association agreement with the EU. A decision not to sign by Ukraine’s now ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, prompted the protests that resulted in his decision to flee Kiev on 21 February. The EU says that it is ready to sign the association agreement when Ukraine is ready. An EU official said that today’s summit would be “an important staging-post” in the process of deciding on the timing of the signing of the agreement. EU leaders are also expected to give their political backing to a €11 billion package of emergency financial support outlined yesterday (5 March) by the European Commission. Up to €8bn of the funding comes from the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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