Russia's European Agenda and The Baltic States - Defence ...

RUSSIA’S EUROPEAN AGENDA AND THE BALTIC STATES
the Kaliningrad’s problems in substance. On the other hand, Russia, by escalating
the Kaliningrad problem, uses it as a blackmailing tool (‘geopolitical hostage’) in
order to get concessions in other areas of Russia-NATO and, particularly, Russia-
EU relations. Such tendencies are very unfavourable for Lithuania, since she is
eliminated from the solution of the Kaliningrad-related issues and becomes a
potential hostage of an agreement between Russia and Germany (and eventually
the EU).
That said, one of the major tasks of Lithuanian policy vis-à-vis Kaliningrad
is to restrict Russia’s possibilities to exploit the Kaliningrad issue on a bilateral level
among large European powers. The solution of the Kaliningrad-related problems
should be sought on a local or regional level. In other words, the elimination of the
Kaliningrad issue from a bilateral big-power level should correlate with a growing
influence of Lithuania, Poland and other regional players (the Nordic states) in
solving questions related to the political and economic status of the oblast. The task
for Lithuania, by acting jointly with Poland, is to consolidate her participation in
decision-making process vis-à-vis Kaliningrad. This is the first necessary condition
when seeking the balanced development of the oblast. The second condition is
the transformation of the Kaliningrad oblast to a ‘pilot’ region: this would create
conditions for geopolitical change and encourage the oblast’s move towards
political autonomy. Moreover, the concept of a ‘pilot’ region should be based on
the creation of favourable economic environment for foreign investments in the
oblast (as a free economic zone), the penetration of Western capital and the increase
of transit importance of the region. Finally, the third condition – demilitarisation of
Kaliningrad would weaken ‘centripetal’ tendencies in the oblast, i.e. its dependence
on the federal centre.
It is possible to affirm that Russia and the EU command sufficient political
and economic power to turn the Kaliningrad region to a successful model of Russia-
EU cooperation – a ‘pilot’ region. It is equally obvious that a key condition for
such a transformation is liberalisation of Russian policies in both economic and
political sectors. On the other hand, current actions of the federal centre show that
critical changes in its policies vis-à-vis Kaliningrad, at least in a short-term, are
hardly possible: Moscow takes priority of the political centralisation of the state,
which implies the political subordination of the region. This sets the goal for the
Baltic States, particularly for Lithuania: when decreasing Kaliningrad’s vertical
subordination to the federal centre, to engage the oblast, as much as possible, in the
EU space.
The achievement of this goal would require the implementation of the
following tasks:
• First, in order to achieve solidarity among EU states vis-à-vis Kaliningrad, it
is necessary that the Kaliningrad question should be considered at EU-level,
not at a bilateral level of big European powers;
• Second, to initiate projects that would involve the oblast in the networks
ofEuropean infrastructure;
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