THE EU AS A PEACE-MAKER IN THE RUSSO- GEORGIAN WAR

THE EU AS A PEACE-MAKER IN THE RUSSO-
GEORGIAN WAR
Tuomas Forsberg
Department of Political Science and International Relations
33014 University of Tampere
Finland
tuomas.forsberg(at)uta.fi
Antti Seppo
Network for European Studies
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Paper Presented at the Fifth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, 23-26 June
2010 Porto.

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Introduction
I believe we can say with a straight face that the EU rose to the occasion. We
have acted in unity, with determination and we have achieved clear results.
Javier Solana (2008)
When the EU, under the French Presidency, acted as a peace mediator during the
Russo-Georgian war in August 2008, it was widely seen as a sign of the EUs
growing role in issues of war and peace in world politics. The EU acted swiftly and in
a seemingly united manner in a difficult situation and managed to broker a cease-fire
between the conflicting parties. The EU also decided to establish a monitoring
mission to Georgia and to launch an international fact-finding mission to investigate
the origins and the course of the conflict. Together with the UN and the OSCE, the
EU is also hosting the peace talks between Russia and Georgia in Geneva. Jean-Pierre
Jouyet (2009: 88), the French Minister for European Affairs, argued that the Georgian
crisis was as important for European diplomacy as Euro was for European economic
politics. The EU Council report on the implementation of the European Security
Strategy also highlighted the Georgian experience by declaring that Our Georgia
mission has demonstrated what can be achieved when we act collectively with the
necessary political will. (European Council, 2008)
The achievements of the EU, in particular as far as the cease-fire was
concerned, were often contrasted with the failure of the EU to deal with the Balkan
crisis during the 1990s (Whitman and Wolff, 2010). Famously, the EU failed to act as
a peace mediator in the Balkans during the 1990s. At that time the hour of Europe
turned out to be an empty slogan. The cease-fire in the Bosnian war was achieved
through NATO intervention and the peace through US-led negotiations at Dayton.
Despite the fact that the EUs role in the Russo-Georgian war was seen as a
success by Solana and many other EU representatives and commentators, there were
sceptical interpretations too. First of all, the EU was not able to prevent the war.
Second, the EU did not receive all the style points when mediating the cease-fire,
since the conditions remained vague and not thoroughly implemented. Thirdly, so far
the EU has not been able to bring the parties toward a more lasting peace. Fourthly,
the role of the EU in the peace negotiations could not stand the test of the principles
that the EU wanted to uphold. Finally, it was unclear to what extent the success could
have been attributed to France rather than the EU.
In this chapter we will try to do two things. First, we will critically evaluate
the conflicting claims about the merits of the EUs mediation effort in the Russo-
Georgian war. While realising that it is probably still too soon to present the whole
story, we will construct an empirical narrative that helps to conceptualise the role of
the EU with regard to the Russo-Georgian war and its peace negotiations. Second, and
even more importantly, we will also try to take a closer look at the sources of the
EUs influence in the crisis based on a theoretical sketch that combines a theory of
mediation with theories of the nature of the EUs power. If the EU was not successful
in mediating conflicts in the 1990s but was so in the 2000s, how can we explain the
growing impact of the EU? On the basis of this analysis, we will draw some
conclusions about the diplomatic role and influence of the EU towards third parties in
particular with regard to international conflicts.
The concept of success is, of course, very slippery and is difficult to pin
down in policy analyses (Baldwin, 2000). However, it is imperative at some point to

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try to evaluate the impact of the EUs policies, in order to be able to make sense of the
EU as an international actor. Jørgensen (1998) suggests that the yardstick of success
can be external, internal or a combination of the two. External criteria mean that we
have formed a baseline against which we measure success, whereas internal criteria
mean that we take the stated goals and aims of the EU at face value for a yardstick of
success. Jørgensen recommends a mixed approach, but how such a mix is best formed
varies from case to case. Very seldom does a particular policy constitute full success
or a complete failure. Moreover, to state that the EU was a successful mediator in the
crisis is not the same as arriving at a conclusion that the EUs policies in respect to the
Caucasus and Georgia have been successful on the whole. What is more, the EUs
policy towards the Caucasus is, in any case, just beginning to take some shape,
particularly in the form of the new Eastern Partnership Initiative of the EU. These
remarks notwithstanding, we believe that by analysing the EUs policies and its
impact in such a narrow area of policy as mediation, we are able to draw attention to
some important aspects affecting the EUs policymaking capabilities and its influence
on policy outcomes.
Mediation Theory and the Role of the EU
There are two principal types of successful mediation and three basic views of the
sources and nature of the power of the EU in international affairs. In order to sketch a
theory of EU mediation in general and its role in the Russo-Georgian war in
particular, we combine these two typological theories into one. We will distinguish
between the possible roles of the EU as an interested party playing a power political
role, an interested normative power, and a neutral facilitator that is interested in
achieving peace but not primarily in maximising national interests of the EU member
states or promoting certain predetermined values.
Perhaps the best-known theory of conflict mediation in international affairs
derives from Princen (1992). He distinguishes between two roles for mediators. First
there is the neutral mediator, who acts as a facilitator in the conflict resolution. The
primary role of the facilitator is to act as a messenger, recognise the shared interests
and the bargaining space. In essence, the solution reflects the common interests of the
conflicting parties, and the mediator does not change or affect these interests through
its own action. She simply provides the channel for negotiations and thereby helps to
remove possible psychological barriers of a peace deal, as it is easier to start
negotiations through contacting a third party rather than the opponent directly. The
other role for a mediator is power political. The mediator is an interested party, and
shapes the achieved resolution to the conflict through using her own power resources.
By promises and threats she can affect the interest structure of the conflicting parties.
The outcome therefore reflects as much the interests of the mediator as those of the
conflict parties. Other, newer studies of mediation (Bercovitch and Gartner 2009) may
suggest a third type of a mediator between the two, based on prominence of
procedural strategies, but the principal dichotomy between facilitative and power
political mediators remains the same.
When looking at the literature on the EU as an international actor, we can
discern three different alternatives. First, there is the view that the EU is or at least is
developing into a traditional self-interested great power with military resources.
Secondly, there is the idea of the EU as a trade power, whose primary interests and
vehicle of power in international affairs is its economic might. Thirdly, there is the
idea of the EU as a normative power, whose power rests on persuasion and ability to

3
shape discourses (Manners, 2002). The primary interest of the EU as a normative
power is to promote universal norms, such as human rights norms.
If these two typological theories are combined, we can arrive at three possible
roles of the EU as a mediator and, therefore, also at three different possible
explanations of the success of the EU as a mediator in the Russo-Georgian war. First,
the EU can be seen as a facilitator who was successful in mediating the cease-fire to
the war because of its perceived impartiality and neutrality. Second, the EU can be
seen as an interested party who was successful because it used its economic and to a
lesser extent its military resources in mediating the conflict. We put the military
power and economic power dimensions here together, because from the outset it is
rather clear that, if the military power of the EU had any significance, it was rather
limited. Thirdly, the EU can be seen as a normative power that was successful in the
mediation because of its ability to shape the normative understandings of the
conflicting parties or at least to get them to accept a normatively motivated solution
(Parmentier, 2009).
Obviously, the effectiveness of different mediation strategies depends on the
context. Nevertheless, Bercovitch and Gartner (2009) argue that, on the basis of
empirical conflict statistics, it seems that power political strategies work best in highintensity
disputes, whereas a pure facilitative strategy performs least well. In
asymmetric conflicts the role of the mediator is important if it can convince the
stronger party to abstain from further escalation of the conflict and at the same time
the weaker party understands that it has to compromise to a greater degree later if it
does not agree to the settlement now. We realise that our sketch as well as the
typological theories upon which the sketch is based is rather rudimentary. It is seldom
if ever possible to discern pure types. The roles can nevertheless be seen as idealtypes
that make it possible to consider the weigh and role of different explanations.
The Russo-Georgian War
As is always the case with armed conflicts and other disputes, there is no objective
account of the events of the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. A number of reliable
scholarly works on the course of the conflict exist, however (Chronology 2008,
Oksanenko 2008, Fischer 2008, Allison 2008, Cheterian 2009 and Asmus 2009).
What we know for a fact, at the moment, is that the Georgian military launched a
military operation over the border of the breakaway territory of South Ossetia at the
eve of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing on 7 August. The
Georgian offensive devastated the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, where a
number of Russian peace-keepers and hundreds of civilians were killed or wounded in
the attacks.
Russia responded with military force immediately the next day, 8 August. It
launched its offensive through the Raki tunnel from North Ossetia, dispelled the
Georgian troops from South Ossetia and advanced over the South Ossetian border
towards the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Russian forces bombed and then occupied the
Georgian city of Gori and, having opened a second front from Abkhazia, they took
control of the port town of Poti. On 10 August Georgian troops were given the order
to retreat from South Ossetia. The Russians stopped their invasion around Gori, 60
kilometres from Tbilisi, and announced that they did not intend to advance on Tbilisi.
Meanwhile in South Ossetia, paramilitary units harassed the Georgian minority
population which fled to areas controlled by the Georgian government.
The UN Security Council met right after the outbreak of hostilities. In the
meeting on 9 August both the Georgian and Russian envoys accused one another of

starting a war that could have grave consequences and would endanger the peace in
the whole of Caucasus. On 10 August the UNSC convened for the third time to react
to the ever-escalating crisis, but no solution was found due to Russias resistance to a
joint UNSC resolution.
The EU reacted to the crisis under the EU presidency of France. Foreign
Minister Bernard Kouchner flew to Tbilisi together with the OSCE chairman,
Finlands Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, on late 9 August. On the way and the
following morning they drafted a tentative ceasefire proposal on three key issues:
cessation of hostilities, recognition of Georgias territorial integrity, as well as rapid
re-establishment of the status quo ante. They discussed the plan with Foreign Minister
Ekaterine Tkeshelashvili. Then they presented the proposal to President Mikhail
Saakashvili who accepted it. After having visited the town of Gori on the request of
the hosts, Kouchner and Stubb flew to Moscow in order to negotiate a ceasefire with
the Russians. However, the French President Nicholas Sarkozy decided also to come
to Moscow to negotiate the ceasefire personally. He explained to Kouchner that he did
not want his hands be tied by a paper negotiated in Tbilisi without his input and with
someone the Russians hated. He brought with him a new peace plan that was based on
the Kouchner-Stubb proposal but was prepared in Paris. (Asmus 2010, 195-6).
Sarkozy presented his plan to President Dmitri Medvedev on 12 August. The
six principles of the peace plan were finally drafted by Sarkozy and Medvedev
together on basis of the French proposal. They included, first, the non-use of force;
second, cessation of hostilities; third, free access to humanitarian aid; fourth,
withdrawal of Georgian forces to their normal bases; and, fifth, withdrawal of Russian
military to the lines prior to the start of hostilities. The fifth clause included the much
disputed Russian claim for additional security measures pending international
mechanisms. The final clause called for international discussions on achieving lasting
security in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The reference to respecting the territorial
integrity of Georgia was left out in the final peace plan, because the French team saw
stopping the war as a priority. Medvedev accepted the plan during the same day with
obvious backing from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who also participated in the
negotiations.
On 13 August Saakashvili secured Georgias agreement to the peace plan of
President Sarkozy. Saakashvili was not quite happy with the plan, and he requested in
particular the removal of the sixth clause referring to talks on the future status of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and President Medvedev agreed to this. Saakashvili
signed the modified agreement on 15 August during the visit of US Foreign Secretary
Condoleezza Rice. Rice saw her role as convincing the Georgians to agree to a
ceasefire that was flawed but necessary, but it had to be done in terms that were not
demeaning to the Georgians (Asmus 2010, 209). Medvedev accepted the document on
16 August, but Russia did not start troop withdrawals immediately. These steps
towards peace got the unanimous support of all EU member states.
A key session of the UNSC was held on 19 August. The Russian ambassador
rejected the draft resolution presented by France because it insisted on respecting
Georgias territorial integrity and its internationally acknowledged borders. The
Russian ambassador claimed that the French draft separated individual elements of
the six-point Moscow Peace Plan and reinterpreted them for propaganda purposes.
(UN Security Council, 2008). As Russia was accused of failing to honor the ceasefire
plan, it circulated its own UN Security Council Resolution. It reiterated Moscows
view that the peace plan allowed Russia to implement additional security measures
before leaving Georgia.
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The French EU Presidency strictly condemned Russias de facto recognition
of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on 26 August. In the view of the
EU, Russia had neither respected the agreed six-point agreement nor had it began to
withdraw its troops in a timely manner. Some member states called for immediate
countermeasures. The EU convened an emergency summit on 1 September in
Avignon. At the meeting, the EU member states decided to freeze the negotiations on
a new cooperation agreement with Russia. There was however no agreement on
imposing additional sanctions on Russia. The EU was also not willing to send armed
EU peacekeepers to Georgia. Instead, the possibility of establishing an autonomous
civilian monitoring mission in Georgia was discussed. The EU summit decisions were
seen as favourable by Russia. Russian Prime Minister Putin commented on the EUs
summit by saying that Thank God, common sense prevailed. We do not see any
extreme conclusions or proposals, and this is very good. We have a foundation to
continue dialogue with our European partners (RIA Novosti, 2008).
Following talks between Sarkozy, EU High Representative Solana and the EU
Commission Head José Manuel Barroso and Russian representatives, Russia agreed
on 8 September to withdraw its troops from Georgian territory surrounding South-
Ossetia and Abkhazia. The rest of the pull-out was supposed to happen once an
international monitoring mission was deployed. The Council of the European Union
acted swiftly. It decided on 15 September to establish an autonomous civilian
monitoring mission (EUMM) of 200 European monitors in Georgia that was deployed
on 1 October. Despite Georgian wishes and because of the Russian resistance, the
mission did not include any US observers. The EU Council also nominated a Special
Representative for the Crisis in Georgia, Pierre Morel, in addition to already existing
Special Representative to South Caucasus, Peter Semneby. Russia respected the 8
September agreement and pulled out its military step by step. On 8 October the
EUMM could witness that Russia seems to have completed most of withdrawal (The
European Union Monitoring Mission, 2008).
The relations between the EU and Russia were normalized at the EU-Russia
Summit held on 14 November in Nice. The EU saw no further reason to freeze the
start of the negotiations for the new strategic partnership agreement, since Russia had
for the most part respected its bid to withdraw its forces from Georgia. Russia had,
however, not withdrawn its recognition of the breakaway republics and it still
maintained a small troop presence in Georgia and this is why Lithuania criticised the
decision of normalizing relations. Otherwise the summit did not produce any major
successes, but both sides described the atmosphere of the negotiations as positive.
Instead of Georgia, the main focus of the meeting dealt with the global financial crisis
and its effects both in the EU and Russia. The EU reiterated that it was willing to
support Russias membership in the WTO.
In December 2008 the EU decided to set up an independent international fact
finding mission that would probe into the causes and course of the Georgian conflict.
Already during the Avignon meeting in September a group of countries, supported by
the French presidency, were calling for such an investigating body. The commission
head was Swiss diplomat and a former UN special envoy to Georgia Heidi Tagliavini
and the group consisted of legal and military experts from EU countries.
The EUMM was the most important tool of the EU conflict management in
the field. It could not prevent small incidents but overall stabilization and
normalization was on increase. However, the EUMM was not able to utilize fully its
mandate, as Russia was not willing to grant access to the EU monitors to South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. The South Ossetians and Abkhazians as well as Russia
5

6
opposed the EU presence on their territories since the EU mandate according to
their interpretation covered only Georgias territory.
In summer 2009, the EUMM remained the only international observer group
in Georgia and its breakaway republics. The mandate of the OSCE Mission to
Georgia, which had operated in Georgia for over 15 years, was not extended at the
end of 2008 due to Russias opposition. UNOMIG, which had been in Georgia from
1993, came also to an end in June 2009. In both cases, the EU invested a lot of
diplomatic energy in its effort to get Russias approval on extension of the mandates,
but the EU was ultimately unable to move Russia in the issue.
At this writing (spring 2010) the peace negotiations in Geneva have not
produced any major breakthrough. During the years course of negotiations, actually
only little progress can be witnessed. Positive results have been achieved with regard
to the returning of internally displaced persons and providing for their security by
incident prevention mechanisms and continuous cooperation between the secessionist
and Georgian authorities (Co-Chairs of the Geneva Discussions, 2009). Moreover, the
fact that the war has not recurred, contrary to much speculation during the summer of
2009, speaks on behalf of a kind of success of the negotiations.
The EUs Role as a Mediator
The EU has security, economic and normative interests in the Caucasus region. With
regard to security, general stability was the key goal. The recognition of the South
Caucasus as a possible problem area for the Union was acknowledged as part of the
EU security strategy already in 2003. According to the strategy, we should now take
a stronger and more active interest in the problems of the Southern Caucasus, which
will in due course also be a neighbouring region (European Council 2003). Since
2003, the European Council also had a decided to establish the Special Envoy in the
South Caucasus. The EU had tried to help in resolving the frozen conflicts of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As late as in June 2008, Solana had travelled to Georgia
in order to strengthen the role of the EU in the mediation efforts. The EUs economic
interests in the Caucasus region concentrate on the diversification of the EUs energy
supplies. Gogolashvili (2009, p. 102) has suggested that the EUs need to export
energy ultimately led the EU to include the Caucasus states in the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). European pipeline projects are already underway in
the region (Nabucco, Baku-Ceyhan etc.). Finally, the EU has also a set of normative
interests in the region that concern mostly democracy and human rights promotion. In
particular, Georgias Rose Revolution in 2003 was seen as a demonstration of the
expansion of European values and normative ideas. The EU had also sponsored a rule
of law mission (THEMIS) as well as a border support mission (EUSR BST) in
Georgia.
When the open war between Georgia and Russia started in August 2008, the
EU was thus already present in the region in a number of ways. In the eyes of the
conflict parties the EU enjoyed a reasonable degree of impartiality at least when
compared to other possible actors, such as the US, NATO, the UN or OSCE. The
Georgians viewed the EU positively, although not all recommendations stemming
from Brussels of the EU were seen as necessary (Gogolashvili 2009). As to the
security questions, the EU and the Europeans were seen as too soft. For example,
Georgians did not quite trust the Germans in their attempts to mediate in the frozen
conflicts and thought that they were too naïve about Russian interests (Asmus, 2010,
p. 156). Russia, in turn, was extremely sensitive towards the US and NATO presence

in Georgia. Russia was also sceptical about the UN and OSCE and did not prolong the
mandates of the observing missions of these organizations in Georgia. By contrast, it
allowed the EUMM to operate in the country. As Russian foreign minister Sergei
Lavrov (2008) commented, we are glad that the settlement of the Caucasus crisis has
provided a serious subject for our cooperation with the European Union in regional
affairs. Lavrov considered it good that a European solution to the problem was
found.
During the crisis and the subsequent negotiations, the EU introduced an array
of actions that reflected the model of an impartial mediator. It refrained from putting
blame to either of the party for the outbreak of the war. The ceasefire was achieved
because it was in the interests of both parties as the Russians said, they had achieved
their objectives and did not want to continue the invasion to Tbilisi and not because
the EU had somehow changed or influenced the interest structure or the normative
ideas of the parties. The principles that the EU drafted demanded the return to the
status ex quo ante. The EUMM was there to observe and build confidence and not to
enforce a peace agenda onto the parties. During the Geneva negotiations, the EU
supported the establishment of the incident prevention and response mechanisms that
would permit weekly meetings and even more often if necessary, between
international security monitors and local security officials in the areas of tension.
Moreover, a special hotline was created, and the parties agreed on regular joint visits
to be conducted in the areas to defuse tensions.
A good example of action based on impartiality was also the EU sponsored
fact finding mission. The report that was published in October 2009 examined and
discussed the roots and causes for the outbreak of the conflict. The fact that the
mission head was a Swiss diplomat underlined the image of impartiality. The mission
was respected as being neutral by the Russians and the Georgian opposition but not
that much by the Georgian government. The key message of the report was that the
Georgian side initiated the conflict but that Russia was not an innocent victim.
(Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, 2009). Indeed, impartial actions
were of course not always neutral as to the effects. As for the fact finding mission, it
became increasingly clear that it was Georgia which actually started the hostilities by
bombarding Tskhinvali. This uncomfortable fact that is still denied by the Georgian
government may have contributed to the deterioration of the atmosphere at the
Geneva negotiations in the form of new accusations. The EUMM can actually have
unintended effects in helping Russia to fortify its claim on the independence of South
Ossetia because it has not been able to monitor in South Ossetia and unable to enforce
the parties to peace. Moreover, the effective implementation of the mechanisms
introduced in the Geneva negotiations remains an open question as it is, eventually,
tied to the good will of the conflict parties.
The EU acted as an interested power political party in the conflict only to a
very limited extent. It tried to influence Russia through freezing the negotiations on
the post-PCA settlement but everybody knew that it was only a symbolic act and not a
real pressure that would bring any results. The EU did not want to introduce economic
sanctions or other heavier sticks in order to force Russia to withdraw its troops
quicker or to back track its recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. The fact that the EU did not resort to any hard power measures was of
course welcomed by the Russians. Neither did the EU use its economic leverage to
influence Georgia or the breakaway republics. It granted an aid package that
amounted up to 500 million, but this aid was unconditional with no political strings.
The EU aimed at rebuilding confidence in the Georgian economy, boosting
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8
investment in critical infrastructure including energy and providing shelter, food, and
other basic services to the internally displaced. (Ferrero-Waldner, 2008).
The EUs normative influence was most visible in its demand for protecting
the rights of the internally displaced and especially women and children. The
normative aim of promoting Georgians territorial integrity has been high on the
agenda, but so far the Russians have been unwilling to buy into that norm. The EU
itself persuaded the Georgians to accept the presence of Abkhazian and South
Ossetian delegations in the peace talks, which would suggest that the EU used its
normative power against its normative goals. Its normative power failed in many
cases when dealing with Russia, most notably in preventing the recognition of the
breakaway republics and getting the Russian approval to the extension of the OSCE
and the UN monitoring missions.
Conclusions
This is not the first attempt to assess the role of the EU in the context of the Russo-
Georgian war of 2008. One authoritative assessment by the House of Lords arrives in
its report at the following conclusion:
The EUs response to the conflict in Georgia was rapid and
reasonably successful. It persuaded the two parties to accept a
ceasefire, and with some delay brought about the withdrawal of
Russian troops from all Georgian territory outside South Ossetia and
Abkhazia and brought the parties together for talks in Geneva. This
success owed much to the effectiveness of a strong Presidency with
whom the Russians were prepared to negotiate. The EU was the
obvious and perhaps only credible body to act as intermediary in the
conflict, and acted with unaccustomed confidence and authority.
(Government Response to the House of Lords European Committee,
2009)
On the basis of our study we principally agree with this conclusion. However, we
would like to add a few qualifications and discuss the explanations of success through
the three different mediator roles that we sketch for the EU.
The role of France in mediating the conflict was prominent to the extent that
many observers have talked more about the French than the EU role in the conflict
since Solana and the EU institutions were rather absent in the acute phase of the crisis.
Frances leadership was important because it was a great power, but also because it
was seen as being more impartial than many other EU member states: France, for
example, had not supported the admission of Georgia into the Membership Action
Plan programme at the Bucharest NATO summit in April 2008. As one Newsweek
article (McNicoll 2008) put it: Frances historic experience with great power politics
and its extensive, well-oiled diplomatic machine undoubtedly lent Sarkozy that extra
degree of credibility when negotiating with Moscow. Still the question is whether a
smaller but equally impartial and active chair would also have been able to act as a
broker if it had enjoyed a similar status of impartiality. Too easily the conclusion is
taken that, because France acted successfully as a broker, nobody else could have
acted successfully as a broker. For example in 1999 it was the President of Finland,
Martti Ahtisaari who was brokering the peace to the Kosovo War on behalf of the EU.
Moreover, the more relevant question, at least after the entry of the Lisbon treaty into

force is, whether the EU foreign minister could play a similar role. What seems clear,
however, was that Sarkozy enjoyed respect from the Russian side and during the
September meeting he was able to use effectively the threat of walking out of the
negotiations, had the Russians not adhered to the previous agreements.
The EU and France were able to take the role of the mediator because both the
US and the OSCE wanted the EU to play that role. The US, of course, had more
military and diplomatic leverage than the EU and the OSCE was already present in
the field, but both the US and the OSCE preferred to support the EU in the conflict.
The conflict settlement would have been more difficult, or at least more complicated,
if there had been institutional competition in this regard. The Georgian government
obviously would have preferred NATO or the US over the EU, but did not have much
choice. Anyway, they saw the EU as a better actor than the OSCE or the UN that were
considered weak because of Russias involvement in the organisations. Most
importantly, however, Russia preferred the EU over NATO or the US that Moscow
was accusing of orchestrating the conflict. For Russia, it was a moral victory that the
US was left out of the process. The OSCE was given some attention but Russia had
become generally critical towards it and the EU led by France fitted Russian interests
better.
As far as our theoretical sketch about three different mediator roles is
concerned, the success of the EU in mediating between Russia and Georgia was most
visible concerning its role as an impartial facilitator. This is so because the EUs
actions did not force the conflicting parties to any actions against their direct interests,
but rather tried to overcome the psychological barriers and come up with at least the
smallest common denominator determined by the EU in a pragmatic way (such as the
benefit of the non-use of force). Moreover, also the implementation of the agreements
was based on the good will of the parties.
If we consider the success of the EU as a principal mediator that advances its
interests through using its economic or military leverage, we can detect a very
minimalistic role. For example, the ability to send a civilian monitoring mission was
hardly dependent on the progress within the ESDP. The EU refrained from economic
sanctions and used its economic aid in a structural or transformative rather than in
a direct manner. These measures did not have any tangible impact on the core issue of
the conflict related to political identity. Therefore it can be said that the EU lacked a
comprehensive conflict management strategy (Whitman and Wolff, 2010).
Finally, the EUs role as a mediator did not rely much on its normative power.
A normative role was visible perhaps in the emphasis on protecting the civilian
population but the EU also had to accept principles that contradicted its
understandings of norms. Yet, with regard to the norm of territorial integrity that has
been very high in the EUs priorities, the EU has been successful only in so far as it
has been able to prevent a wider international recognition of the independence of the
breakaway republics but even there, a more decisive role was probably played by
China, which refused to recognise the republics. Yet, for the sake of pragmatism and
stability, the EU has had to accept the de facto independence of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia as well as to persuade Georgia to accept Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the
negotiation table in Geneva. Moreover, the EUMM was not granted access to the
secessionist regions, which can also be counted as a failure of the EU to achieve its
normative objectives. There is, indeed, a certain contradiction in the EUs roles, as it
has simultaneously tried to be both a neutral facilitator and a normative power.
Precisely because the EU has some fundamental ideas and beliefs about key concepts
such as state sovereignty and the interpretation of the international law, it is hard for
9

the EU to keep up both with its impartiality and normative objectives if the aims
collide in the eyes of the conflict parties, as happened in the aftermath of the crisis.
Yet is up to the EU to come up with a strategy where both of these objectives can be
sustained.
Such a strategy would require, first, a solution to the EUs
impartiality/normative power paradox as it now pits the EU acting against its own
principles. Second, the EUMM is doing a good job on the ground by trying to get the
parties to the conflict to abide by common rules and norms under EU supervision. Yet
a more profound strategy should contain realistic, acceptable and implementable ideas
on how to affect the secessionist regions in their pursuit of independence. One of the
biggest problems relates to the fact that the EU, as an international actor, is
irrevocably involved in the Caucasus without effectively being able to tackle the
regional aspect of the crisis, precisely because it has not, up to date, been able to
pursue its dual role without causing serious internal political contradictions. This is so
because the EU has to cooperate with both Russia and other Caucasus states
simultaneously: pleasing one is likely to alienate the other. Finding a balance is
extremely difficult. In the long term, however, some kind of equilibrium on a general
level is more likely than not to materialize, as the EUs track record with Russia has
proven that energy policies, for instance, usually weigh more than human rights if the
EU has to make a choice. But it is much harder for the EU as a mediator to find a winwin
situation in the current crisis with which the EU could also live.
The EU has not been able to come up with credible sticks nor effective carrots
in its relations with Russia since the introduction of the concept of political
conditionality in the framework of EU-Russia PCA agreement (Kratochvil, 2008;
Haukkala, 2010). This is probably one reason why some observers are rather skeptic
in their assessment of the EUs efforts as far as the Caucasus crisis in the long run is
concerned (see e.g. Tocci, 2008; Merlingen and Ostrauskaite, 2009, Whitman and
Wolff, 2010). The academic discussion of the EU as a normative power and the
EUs self-understanding as a force for good aims at combining normative
standpoints, not impartiality, with effectiveness in international crises (Manners,
2002; Parmentier, 2009). Yet in the eyes of the conflict parties, the normativity of the
EU may undermine its perceived impartiality. As a mediator the EU has a hard time
living up to its promises, be they of normative nature or not. Therefore it seems that
the linchpin of the EUs success as a mediator in future crisis in the eastern
neighbourhood is not necessarily the introduction of powerful sticks or strong
normative standpoints as they would most likely undermine the EUs role as an
impartial facilitator. From the Russian point of view, a sufficiently independent but
not a threatening posture proved to be a key factor that made it possible in the first
place for the EU to assume the role as a mediator in the Georgian case.
10

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