Suchergebnisse

An article on the qualitatively new factors of the bilateral relations between Russia & the European Union in view of the expiration of the Partnership & Cooperation Agreement The EU's golden age with an economic growth of over 3 percent GDP has passed, present models of economic developments seem to have exhausted themselves, & optimism regarding the single currency of lower production costs & boosted competitiveness have been premature. All in all, the transformation into an independent financial & economic pole to broaden the post-WWII limits imposed by the US, has largely failed; recent expansions with East European struggling economies has been a strategic blunder, causing a considerable drop in GDP average & world economy shares, & stirring at the same time Mediterranean countries that found it was their turn to join. Furthermore, it has to cope with much more acute economic, social & other problems. How, then, should it develop into a global actor? An all-important message for Russia, that will have to deal with either individual European states, or the EU assembly. 1) it needs a mechanism of common foreign policy & consolidated positions of all members on foreign policy issues; 2) a restructuring of the trans-Atlantic sub-system of relations. The EU's position & politics have initiated a division of European countries into member states & "non-Europeans," the latter European geographically, but not part of the EU. In order to achieve EU-centrism Europe has been cut up, devaluating the Larger Europe project & other European organizations, reviving the East-West division of the continent & leaving behind about 200 million people. O. van Zijl