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The Eurasian Politician - December 2002
Anssi Kullberg, 20th Dec. 2002
Recently I have been more than often asked to define where lies Europe's eastern border. Having been for a long time an active member of the Paneuropean Union in Finland, I was expected to have a clear answer to this, latest in an interview of a Swedish-speaking Finnish radio station, Radio Vega.
Time after time, I have told that there is no definite border for Europe in the east. We can consider the Atlantic as a very natural border in the West, the Polar Sea in the north, and the Mediterranean in the south. But in the east, Europe just gradually changes into Eurasia until finally we reach places that we can clearly define as parts of Asia. In our minds, Europe is not a clear-cut geographical entity, but something that might have a core in what we call Central Europe. Asia, in our minds, is ever more often a synonym for East Asia. The rest is Eurasia, area which is supposed to contain both "European" and "Asian" characteristics. The Middle East or Orient is a third world which we seldom think as "Asia".
As a Paneuropean, I have always considered Europe as something that does not need to be narrowly defined let alone separated from the rest of the world. Paneurope is "whole Europe", which already presupposes a very wide and tolerant understanding of Europe. The same problem we face when asked to define "European culture", as is being done more often than earlier - as if people would really expect Samuel Huntington's pseudo-scientific formulation to have become reality.
There are two basic simplistic approaches to the question of "European culture": The first one is to take European culture as a synonym for Western culture. Then it includes the values of freedom, democracy, market economy, tolerance and a justice state. Sometimes we Paneuropeans ourselves indeed call these values "European values". But if this is the case, then Europe extends over the Atlantic and also to the oases of Western political culture around the Pacific area.
The second, and more dangerous, approach is to define European culture as same as Christianity. It is true that Europe is predominantly Christian, and that the Christian values can be see supporting what we call the European values. Still, it must be emphasised that religion and culture are two different things. Huntington seems not to have understood it, but the rest of us should. Or should we take Christian Namibians and Philippinos as Europeans but reject Muslim Albanians and Bosnians as something alien to "our culture"?
Even though it is more than ten years from the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and ten years from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union has still not accepted any of the former socialist countries to EU. The NATO has been a bit more ready and has already included Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. In November in Prague, the NATO also invited Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria as members. The EU did not even this in Copenhagen, although it took a very important step by inviting Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta to become members in 2004. There are still two years of uncertainty left for these indisputably European countries until they will really reach their membership in both the EU and NATO. Anything can happen in two years. This will be very critical time, especially for the Baltic states and Romania, where externally inspired instability could easily ruin their hopes, if the West does not support them.
Although even the most advanced candidates, Slovenia, Hungary and Estonia, are still not EU members, some senior statesmen within the EU have started to give short-sighted comments on which countries would "never" be accepted in the EU. I just need to give two of the most notorious cases:
The President of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi, has recently "promised" that the EU would never accept any country of the former Soviet Union except the three Baltic countries. Prodi basically said that Moldavia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia herself could never become EU members. No basis for such was mentioned. Obviously, it does not matter if for example Moldavia would one day get rid of the present oppressive communist regime, improve her economy, and be on the same level with present EU candidates. Obviously, for Prodi, there is something that still decisively separates the Romanians of Bessarabia (present Republic of Moldova) from their fellow Romanians of Romania proper.
The Chairman of the EU Future Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, recently gave an unfortunate outburst of anti-Turkish hatred when directly attacking the Turkish application for EU membership and said that Turkey is not part of Europe, that those who support Turkey's membership in the EU are against the EU, and that the membership of Turkey in the EU would mean the end of the EU. This kind of irrational Turcophobia does not only show extreme arrogance and lack of basic diplomatic skills, but also a dangerous level of ignorance and religiously inspired intolerance.
For people like Giscard, it does not matter how many reforms Turkey does. It does not matter that the rights of the Kurdish minority are nowadays better protected in Turkey than for example France has secured her own minorities. It does not matter that Turkey has been a Western-modelled secular democratic market economy longer than the former military juntas and present EU members of Southern Europe. There is nothing Turkey can do: because it is a "Muslim country", it will always by rejected.
There are two kinds of European statesmen: others would like the EU to enlarge and fulfil her destiny to become a united continent of peace and a world power. Others would like to close it as much as possible; for them, already the Eastern European countries are not really a part of Europe, but something ugly, eastern, post-communist. It would be a release for these people if Russia would quickly grow strong again and occupy back all these hinterlands. Except perhaps Poland, because that one is known in France, too. For those who really care about greater Europe, East Central Europe as well as countries like Romania and Bulgaria are naturally parts of Europe, not depending on whether the EU accept them or not. And if Europe can include more countries from the East to the zone of stability and democracy, this is only a blessing, not a terrible problem that it seems to be for the bureaucratic minds of Brussels. Probably there has never before existed an "empire" in the world that refuses from welcoming volunteer joiners.
Where it comes to Turkey, for anyone who knows history, Turkey is self-evidently part of the European cultural space. It is the true heir of the Byzantine Empire, and one of the cradles of both Antiquity and Christianity. The Turks were in Europe from the ancient times, and they originally came to the Balkans on the invitation of Constantinople to defend the Byzantine Empire against her Slav enemies the Serbs and Bulgarians. When the young Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire inherited both the administrative and geographical essence of her Byzantine predecessor. Greek aristocracy became direct subjects to the Sultan, and loyally served the new empire throughout the area from Vallachia to Cyprus. Greek, Armenian and Jewish merchants greatly benefited from the Ottoman reign, and spread throughout the empire.
The Ottoman Empire brought about centuries of stability and religious tolerance to the Balkans as well as Anatolia and the Middle East. Simultaneous religious intolerance of Christian Europe drove Transylvanian Unitarians to Turkish protection, and the Slav Bogomils who had been declared heretics by Catholic and Orthodox churches, converted into Islam (their descendants are the present Bosnians). Many Ottoman leaders and even several sultans were European by birth. The fact that the empire had changed religion by Turkish conquest is nothing new: The Roman Empire was not originally Christian, and Russia inherited her empire from the Mongols.
Like other Mediterranean empires, the Turks, too, dreamed of reviving the Roman Empire, for which reason already the Seldjuks added "Rum" (Rome) to their name. Only a couple of naval losses to the Venetians prevented the Turks from conquering also the actual Rome, which at that time was a chaotic city state plagued by internal fighting between the Orsinis and the Colonnas. If Rome would have fallen, Europe might as well consider Islam as her main religion, Europe would be understood mainly as a Mediterranean conception and there might be questions whether some Christian peripheries in the north really belong to Europe.
Even when the sunset came for the Turkish Empire, she was called the "Sick Man of Europe" - it was recognised as one of the European empires. When she was reformed according to the ideals of Kemal Atatürk, she became even more clearly a European state. The Greek President Eleutherios Venizelos even suggested a Nobel peace prize for Atatürk. "Cultural" differences between Turkey and the Balkans today are much smaller than between states of Northern and Southern Europe, whereas between Turkey and her Arab neighbours the gap is great even without considering the obvious difference in political culture. It is strange how certain European countries of the Latin Catholic group have more positive attitude towards the Maghreb countries of North Africa than towards Turkey, although even the most advanced of the Maghreb group, Tunisia, is still extremely far away from the standards Turkey has reached long ago. Even if we only stare at the religious frontiers, we must recognise that secular Turkey has more in common with Europe than with most of the Muslim world.
The father of the Paneuropean Movement, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, originally excluded Turkey, Britain, and Russia from Paneurope, because they were colonialist empires oppressing their neighbour peoples. Later, however, both Britain and Turkey were accepted by Coudenhove-Kalergi to be parts of Paneurope, because they both had abandoned the colonial imperialist form of state and could be considered as symmetric partners among European states.
Also Russia is self-evidently part of the European cultural and historical space. However, unlike Turkey, Russia does not meet even the minimal criteria for the "political culture" and "European values". Today, it is absurd to hear Turkey called a "fascist" state, while in regard to Russia, this word would fit much better. There is a genocide going on in Chechnya against a nation that has nothing to do with terrorism. There are concentration camps, indiscriminate mass murder, torture, rape and destruction of all infrastructure as well as cultural heritage of the Chechens. Throughout the Russian Federation, there are pogroms and widespread state-inspired violence against ethnic minorities, especially Caucasians. There is state-sponsored mass propaganda agitating national and religious hatred and fanaticism. The parliament, Duma, has no powers left, and freedom of speech has been abolished during Vladimir Putin's reign. Unlike Turkey, Russia indeed is a police state where arbitrary power of the security agencies is mixed with corruption and organised internationalised crime.
It is not "culture" that is the reason that most Paneuropeans do not consider Russia as a part of Paneurope. We have to apply objective criteria, and here we should watch more the "political culture" - the application of the values of freedom of speech, individual and economic liberty, democracy, and a functioning justice system. The state must be just. Moreover, the Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala made a point (in the same interview of Radio Vega) in saying that also the size of a state causes serious practical problems for a system like the EU, which is based on the idea of equality of the member states. It is very improbable that Russia would ever accept the role of one European state among others.
Also when evaluating the border cases of the space between the core of Europe and Russia, we have to look at the "political culture". At the moment, Belarus and Azerbaijan are out of question already for the reason that they are harsh dictatorships, and Belarus is even openly hostile at Europe. Also Ukraine and Moldavia are presently unfitting for the democratic family of the EU. Still, the Paneuropean Movement is an old organisation and should not make the kind of unhistorical and ignorant comments as those of Prodi's. We should remember "never say never". Moldavia, Ukraine and Georgia as well as even Belarus could very suddenly return to the European style of democracy that in fact shortly existed in these states right after their independence in 1992. For an example, we can look at Serbia, which was a genocidal aggressor just some years ago, but which is now mentioned as one of the future applicants for EU enlargement in the Balkans.
It must be a dream for all European democrats that one day Russia would behave like Poland. However, waiting for that day, we can expect that Moldavia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus would reach that level much more quickly. None of these countries has ambitions for imperial conquest around themselves, and even though there are Russian-supported separatist rebellions undermining stability in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldavia (potentially also in Ukraine), these should not be considered any bigger problems on these countries' road to EU than those of the Balkans today.
In fact, the EU should act more actively to find lasting solutions for the territorial disputes both in the Balkans and in the former Soviet Union area. Serbia would be better off as a European state if it gives up Kosovo and Montenegro and grants autonomy for Voivodina. The Croats of Herzegovina, the Muslims of Sandzak and the Albanians of Macedonia still wait for some sort of solution, at least normal minority rights. The Bosnian Serb Republic is not integrated into the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and would probably be closer to Serbia, while Sandzak would logically be closer to Bosnia.
The Europeans should not accept that the "peacekeeping" in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Djavakhetia, Karabagh and Transnistria is a monopoly of Russia, the actual aggressor. There will be no lasting solution for these conflicts until there is wider international attention for them and some pressure on Russia to end occupation on the territories of states whose independence Russia has recognised. Of course, the Europeans should also care more about what happens in Chechnya and elsewhere in the republics within the Russian Federation.
Europe's eastern border may fall as a new Iron Curtain on the western border of the CIS, like Romano Prodi predicted, but that would be very unfortunate for Europe. The border in the south could exclude everything beyond the Maritsa River, but that would be even more unfortunate. We need to think about Turkey as our main bridge to the east and south - Caucasus and Central Asia as well as the Middle East. We also need to seek for a reform into better in Moldavia, Ukraine and Belarus as well as Russia herself. Europe's eastern border could lie in the Urals, or even in Vladivostok, in which case we could start to talk about Eurasia instead. But this demands fundamental changes in Russia - not only formal democracy but a real one. What will probably prove even harder for Russia, it will also demand de-colonisation in the North Caucasus and Volga areas, and abandonment of the present imperial and expansionist "Russian idea".
As an eternal far-sighted visionary, the President of the International Paneuropean Union, Arch-Duke Dr. Otto von Habsburg has already started looking farther ahead, mentioning the prospects of the Mediterranean south coast as a part of the European space. Of course we should include Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan in the European neighbourhood. And why not, far ahead in the future, when countries like Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia are already considered as natural parts of Europe and members of the EU, then also Russia and North Africa may be different from what they are today. Never say never.