beyondukraine.euandrussiainsearchofanewrelation

14 Beyond Ukraine. EU and Russia in Search of a New Relation
for Russia and has historically inhabited the heart of its identity
quest and its debates about the specificity of a Russian way. By
contrast, no complexity prevails in the relationship with the U.S.
Here each actor has a clear understanding of each other’s position
and role in what is regarded as a world competition.
The EU’s attitudes towards its huge neighbour have evolved
into what some have called “Russia fatigue”. Whatever official
statements have said, the EU and its member states separately
have always seen Russia, although to different degrees, primarily
as a problem. During Yeltsin’s tenure, the constant alarm focused
on Russia’s domestic instability. With Putin’s consolidation of
internal power and economic growth, the concern shifted to his
increasingly assertive foreign policy. It is therefore the urgency in
addressing the problem that has largely dictated the EU’s
behaviour towards Russia and has engraved on it a unique stamp
in which preventive concern appears inseparable from intents of
constructive proposals.
For Russia, the importance of the economic dimension of its
relations with the EU has never managed to displace the
Russia/United States axis from its central place in Moscow’s
foreign policy. In the Russian worldview, a great power is
measured largely by the stature of its partners/competitors. With
this approach, Russia can hardly see the EU, however much it is
its largest trade partner, as a mighty actor, which really represents
in world politics the exponential sum of its members. Thus neither
European soft power nor indeed its internal divisions convey to
the Kremlin this idea the way the United States does.
Therefore the dialogue between the EU and Russia is strongly
conditioned by the divergence of the dominant narratives. This
clash of perceptions and understandings lies at the heart of the
knot.
Clashing perceptions: the dynamics of estrangement
The EU and Russia disagree in their explanations of how we got
here and tend to misinterpret the goals of the other. The question is