Economic Crisis Draws Russia and the EU Closer

Russian and European Union leaders held a summit in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, this week, with economic crisis nudging both sides toward greater economic cooperation. The meeting held on Monday and Tuesday was the first between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and EU President Herman Van Rompuy since the Lisbon Treaty came into force last year.

At the summit, the two parties launched a modernization partnership program designed to streamline and diversify Moscow’s economy. Van Rompuy said the EU was better suited to assist in Russia’s economic reformation than the United States.

“With Russia, we don’t need a reset. We want a fast-forward,” Van Rompuy said in reference to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s proposal last year to “reset” relations between Washington and Moscow.

Van Rompuy and Medvedev signed an agreement giving Moscow easier access to Western knowledge and technology, which also commits Russia to democratic reforms and efforts to curb corruption. The summit emphasized trade and economic issues, and discussions of a new Euro-Atlantic security framework. It also yielded some progress toward establishing visa-free travel between Russia and the EU.

Medvedev called the warming relationship a “new form of cooperation with united Europe.”

Each party has good cause to be exploring new forms of partnership with the other at this time.

The crises-hit EU needs Moscow, which has 41 percent of its $460.7 billion of currency reserves in euros, to remain invested in the European common currency. Meanwhile, Russia wishes to bolster its position as Europe’s primary energy supplier which has been threatened by cheaper prices from Middle Eastern suppliers and the EU’s possible development of shale gas.

But is there more behind the budding relations?

Germany, the clear kingpin of the EU, and Russia have a steady history of conflict. They have experienced seasons of partnership, like the Treaty of Rapallo of 1922 and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, but each of these seasons was fleeting. They were forged in prologue to global conflict out of shared strategic needs. And these seasons all ended violently. History is inescapably clear in teaching that Germany and Russia are not comrades.

Any appearance of cooperation between these powers is an omen of conflict on the horizon.

Herbert W. Armstrong’sPlain Truth magazine predicted in May 1962 that, “Once a German-dominated Europe is fully established, Germany will be ready to negotiate and bargain with Russia—and behind the backs of their Western allies if necessary.”

German-dominated Europe is still not completely established, but the union is very quickly solidifying, and the economic crisis is only hastening its calcification. To learn more about the significance of Russo-German cooperation, read “Is Another Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Imminent?”