After the Vilnius fiasco: Who is to blame? What is to be done? CEPS Essay No. 8, 21 January 2014

Emerson, Michael (2014) After the Vilnius fiasco: Who is to blame? What is to be done? CEPS Essay No. 8, 21 January 2014. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

All three parties principally responsible for the Vilnius fiasco are to blame, each in their very different way: the EU for having drafted agreements with an inadequate balance between incentives and obligations, and vulnerable as a result to Putin’s aim to torpedo the whole process in favour of his misconceived Eurasian Union, while Yanukovich tried playing geo-political games that left him personally and the Ukrainian state as Putin’s hostage. It will require a major recalibration of policies to get this unstable new status quo back onto sound strategic lines, and proposals are advanced along three tracks in parallel: for rebuilding the remnants of the EU’s neighbourhood policy, for attempting to get Russia to take Lisbon to Vladivostok seriously, and for promoting a Greater Eurasia concept fit for the 21st century that would embrace the whole of the European and Asian landmass.

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