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The EU and Pan-European IOs and ‘Symbolic’ Successes and Failures in the Protracted Conflicts in Moldova and Georgia

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Managing Security Threats along the EU’s Eastern Flanks

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Abstract

By structurally analysing the interactions between international organisations, including the European Union, and conflict parties in the Eastern Partnership on what this chapter calls a symbolic level, the factors that have facilitated and impeded conflict resolution are identified. Four reasons explain the status quo: the zero-sum thinking of the conflict parties, the undermined efforts of IOs from the perspective of conflict parties, the principles that guide the objectives of IOs as well as their interests. The focus is on the EU as one of the main actors since 2003 because of the inauguration of the ENP and 2008 as a consequence of the Georgian-Russian war. Based on a model for success and failure, this chapter focuses on the symbolic level to determine that threat perceptions have been much stronger in the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict than in Moldova-Transnistria. Despite the low profile of the EU in Georgia prior to 2008, this analysis still shows the existence of symbolic influence of the EU as well as a pronounced role of the EU in Moldova.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This analysis is based on over 500 documents, 60 interviews, various media statements and secondary literature. See Nina Lutterjohann, The Relative Success and Failure of International Organisations and the Georgian-Abkhaz and Moldovan-Transnistrian Protracted Conflicts, 1992–2013, unpublished PhD, University of St Andrews, 2017.

  2. 2.

    Lutterjohann, p. 111.

  3. 3.

    Aljazeera, ‘Syria, fate of Assad impedes success of Geneva III’, 28 April 2016, available at: http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/positionpapers/2016/04/syria-fate-assad-impedes-success-geneva-iii-160428104128240.html.

  4. 4.

    This includes the performance of the respective Head of Mission or the Special Representative.

  5. 5.

    See Hylke Diksta, Policy-making in EU security and Defense: An Institutional Perspective (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

  6. 6.

    UNC (1945), self-determination (Art 2 (1)), territorial integrity (Art 2 (4)), and sovereignty (Art 2 (1)) and Helsinki Accords (1975), (I) sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty, (IV) territorial integrity of states and (VIII) equal rights and self-determination of peoples.

  7. 7.

    The subsequent IPRM mechanism allows the OSCE and UN to be involved in cooperation with the EU. This is coordinated from headquarter offices, and only the regular joint meetings allow for travel to the region.

  8. 8.

    Rick Fawn, ‘The Kosovo and Montenegro Effect’, International Affairs, Vol. 84: 2 (2008), pp. 269–294.

  9. 9.

    Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabkah and Transnistria.

  10. 10.

    See Lutterjohann, 2017.

  11. 11.

    Maria Raquel Freire, Paula Duarte Lopes, Daniela Nascimento, ‘The EU’s role in Crisis Management, The case of EUMM’, in M. G. Galantino et al. (eds.), Managing Crises, Making Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 178–195. Also see Maxime H. A. Larivé, Debating European security and Defense Policy: Understanding the Complexity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

  12. 12.

    Note that these descriptions of a ‘memorandum’ and document do not provide insight into the peace process. A memorandum stresses the internal nature of a document, and document shows the neutrality, similar to a paper.

  13. 13.

    It is unclear who the conflict parties exactly represented.

  14. 14.

    UNOMIG, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unomig/background.html.

  15. 15.

    http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unomig/background.html.

  16. 16.

    Interview with Ghia Nadia, 12 March 2015, Tbilisi.

  17. 17.

    According to the account of Swiss diplomat Eduard Brunner, for one of the ten principles, Soviets wanted ‘immutability’ of borders instead of the ‘inviolability’ of borders. See OSCE, CSCE Testimonies, Causes and Consequences of the Helsinki Final Act, 1972–1989 (2013), p. 17. Furthermore, the CSCE was welcomed and initially perceived as a non-threat by Moscow, which believed that the former Soviet countries would opt out of the 1991-dissolved Warsaw Pact to join NATO and EU structures, which they did.

  18. 18.

    Vicken Cheterian, War and Peace in the Caucasus: Russia’s Troubled Frontier (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2008). Shevardnadze reminded the EU on several occasions in the early 1990s that the EU gave Balkans priority over the former Soviet region.

  19. 19.

    The collaboration between IOs is strongly recommended by scholars, for example Maria Raquel Freire, Conflict and Security in the Former Soviet Union: The Role of the OSCE (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), p. 67, mentioned that non-communication between Vienna and the Missions has been a problem.

  20. 20.

    Terminology coined by Karl Deutsch; also see Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), also see Karl Deutsch and David Singer, ‘Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability’, World Politics 16:3 (1964), pp. 390–406. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Trine Flockart, ‘The Coming Multi-order’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 37:1 (2016), pp. 3–30.

  21. 21.

    The spelling of place names is written in Georgian and Abkhaz to maintain neutrality.

  22. 22.

    It replaced the previous Friends of Georgia (FoG) Group as it prioritised Georgia over them.

  23. 23.

    S. Neil MacFarlane, ‘The Role of the UN’, in Jonathan Cohen (ed.), A Question of Sovereignty: the Georgia-Abkhazia Peace Process (London: Conciliation Resources, Accord #7, 1999), p. 38.

  24. 24.

    Dov Lynch, Russian Peacekeeping Strategies in the CIS: The cases of Moldova, Georgia and Tajikistan (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 39.

  25. 25.

    Lutterjohann, PhD thesis, 2017, p. 212.

  26. 26.

    OSCE Mission to Georgia, ‘Activity Report, No. 1/99, SEC.FR/19/00 (13 January 1999)’, p. 3.

  27. 27.

    SEC.FR/124/99, ‘Activity Report No. 3/99, 1–15 February 1999’.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.

  29. 29.

    SEC.FR/289/99, ‘Activity Report No. 6/99, 6–31 March 1999’ (7 April 1999).

  30. 30.

    IDMC, ‘Georgia IDP Figures Analysis’ (December 2014), http://www.internal-displacement.org/europe-the-caucasus-and-central-asia/georgia/figures-analysis.

  31. 31.

    SEC.FR/350/99, ‘Activity Report No. 7/99, 1–15 April 1999’ (21 April 1999).

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    Tamaz Nadareishvili was known for his hard-line position when he led the Abkhaz government-in-exile between 1993 and 2004.

  34. 34.

    SEC.FR/350/99.

  35. 35.

    On 9 July, a group of armed men hijacked a helicopter carrying 17 people inside the Georgian-controlled Kodori Valley in Abkhazia. Among them were a Georgian minister, leaders of the Abkhaz government-in-exile and a group of journalists. Later the same day, after beating and robbing some of the hostages, the kidnappers, who were reportedly ethnic Georgians, released the hostages. The specific motivation and identity of the hostage-takers was not established; however, it appeared that this was an isolated incident and not related to the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict; yet, on 11 July, two people were killed and one kidnapped in an ambush in the Gal/i District. On 12 July, a bomb exploded within the premises of the Gal/i Administration. Given this unstable situation, the UNHCR withdrew its international staff from Abkhazia. SEC.FR/623/99, p. 7.

  36. 36.

    SEC.FR/661/99, ‘Activity Report No 14/99, 16–31 July 1999’ (11 August 1999).

  37. 37.

    SEC.FR/772/99, ‘Activity Report No. 16/99, 22 August–24 September 1999’.

  38. 38.

    PC.DEL/442/99, ‘EU Statement on Georgia, Permanent Council No 245 on 9 September 1999’, The Finnish Presidency of the EU (9 September 1999). The EU encouraged the Georgian side to renew its ‘long-overdue’ Working Group on ‘Restitution of Refugees and IDP’s Dwelling and Property Rights’ to accelerate the rate of returnees, especially as this could positively affect the Georgian-Abkhaz negotiations.

  39. 39.

    SEC.FR/390/2001.

  40. 40.

    Tracy German, ‘The Pankisi Gorge: Georgia’s Achilles’ heel in its relations with Russia?’ Central Asian Survey, 23:1 (2004): 27–39. 2004, pp. 36–37; Russia’s Chechen War, 2003, (London/New York: Routledge), p. 170.

  41. 41.

    With the intention to train for the Iraq mission (for the advancement of the NATO application, and further energy interests).

  42. 42.

    German, 2004, pp. 36–37.

  43. 43.

    PC.DEL/49/03, ‘US Mission to the OSCE, Statement of Response to the Georgian Intervention on Events in Abkhazia Delivered by Deputy Chief of Mission,’ Douglas Davidson (24 January 2003).

  44. 44.

    Liz Fuller, ‘Georgia: Abkhazia Certain To Reject New ‘Peace Plan’’, RFE/RL (13 April 2007, http://www.rferl.org/a/1075857.html; PC.DEL/199/07, ‘US Statement on the ‚Elections’ in Georgia’s Abkhazia Region’ (9 March 2007).

  45. 45.

    Oksana Anontenko ‘Frozen Uncertainty: Russia and the Conflict over Abkhazia’, in Bruno Coppetiers and Robert Legvold (eds), Statehood and security: Georgia after the rose revolution (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2005), 2004, pp. 255–256.

  46. 46.

    Counteracting ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians despite Russia’s objections in the UNSC.

  47. 47.

    SEC.FR/582/02, ‘AR 17/02, 1–15 October 2002’.

  48. 48.

    Fawn and Nalbandov, pp. 57–91, German, 2006, p. 15; also see Rick Fawn, ‘Russia’s Reluctant Retreat from the Caucasus: Abkhazia, Georgia and the US after September 11’, European Security, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 131–150.

  49. 49.

    Cory Welt, ‘The Thawing of a Frozen Conflict: The Internal Security Dilemma and the 2004 Prelude to the Russo-Georgian War’, Europe-Asia Studies, 62:1 (2009), pp. 63–67.

  50. 50.

    Interview with a Georgian diplomat.

  51. 51.

    German, 2004, p. 17.

  52. 52.

    PC.DEL/742/04, ‘United States Statement on Moldova, US Delegation to the OSCE Delivered to the PC’ (6 August 2004).

  53. 53.

    PC.DEL/739/04, ‘The Netherlands Presidency of the European Union, Permanent Council No. 522, EU Statement on Moldova’ (6 August 2004).

  54. 54.

    PC.DEL/742/04.

  55. 55.

    PC.DEL/718/04, ‘US Statement on Schools and Linguistic Cleansing in Transnistria’ (29 July 2004).

  56. 56.

    That GUAM summits ceased after 2008 is the best indicator for the paralysed character of this organization. https://guam-organization.org/en/organization-for-democracy-and-economic-development-guam-summits/.

  57. 57.

    PC.DEL/786/04, Delegation of Ukraine to the OSCE, ‘Statement on the Situation in the Transdnistrian Region of the Republic of Moldova’ (9 September 2004), (Restricted).

  58. 58.

    SEC.DEL/20/05, ‘Statement by Russia’s MFA concerning the ban on the entry into Transnistria of diplomatic representation accredited in Moldova’ (21 January 2005). The Russian MFA stated that according to the ban on the entry into Transnistria for diplomats it was imperative to object to Tiraspol’s state-building mechanisms.

  59. 59.

    Hill, 2012, p. 170.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Democratization, Demilitarization and Decriminalization.

  62. 62.

    Hill, p. 171.

  63. 63.

    Ibid.

  64. 64.

    The border-customs regime in March 2006 between Moldova and Ukraine was part of the Yushchenko Plan.

  65. 65.

    Based on an interview with Berghof foundation, September 2015.

  66. 66.

    Lutterjohann, 2017. Other results of the PhD thesis are not taken into consideration.

  67. 67.

    I. William Zartman, ‘The Timing of Peace Initiatives: Hurting Stalemates and Ripe Moments’, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics, Vol. (1) (September 2001), pp. 8–18. Only the ripe moment allows change in peace talks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, NRW, Germany

    Nina Lutterjohann

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Correspondence to Nina Lutterjohann .

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  1. School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Rick Fawn

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Lutterjohann, N. (2020). The EU and Pan-European IOs and ‘Symbolic’ Successes and Failures in the Protracted Conflicts in Moldova and Georgia. In: Fawn, R. (eds) Managing Security Threats along the EU’s Eastern Flanks . New Security Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26937-1_5

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