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Crimea: Next Flashpoint in the European Neighbourhood?

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Crimea: Next Flashpoint in the European Neighbourhood? > > POLICYBRIEF ISSN: 1989-2667 Nº 14 - JULY 2009 Crimea: Next Flashpoint in the European Neighbourhood? Natalia Shapovalova and Balazs Jarabik The Russia-Georgia war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia in >>August 2008 has provoked debate over the need for a more active EU engagement regarding conflict prevention in the Eastern HIGHLIGHTS neighbourhood. Voices in the East and West have drawn scenarios for similar tensions in Crimea in Ukraine. • Factors leading to possible conflicts are increasing in Crimea, raising the question of THE CHALLENGE whether Crimea will be the next flashpoint in Europe’s Although Ukraine is recognised as stable in contrast with its neigh- neighbourhood. bours, a number of factors indicate that Crimea could be the next flashpoint in Europe’s neighbourhood. Internally, the territory suffers • Unresolved economic poor and corrupt governance, unresolved economic and social prob- problems and bad governance lems and increased tensions in relations between the Slavic majority are giving rise to conflicts and the Tatar minority. Externally, Russia is expanding its influence in between the Slav and Tatar the region. There is an ethnically Russian majority and the Russian populations of Crimea. fleet is stationed at Sevastopol harbour. This contrasts with Kyiv’s • Ukraine’s central government ineffective governance of the region and tensions between the has less influence than Russia Ukrainian and Crimean authorities which exacerbate the situation. in Crimea, feeding grounds for contestation of Ukraine’s Instruments of long term conflict prevention have not been directed at sovereignty over the peninsula. Crimea. Neither the United States nor the EU has specifically targeted Crimea with its aid programmes. The UNDP programme in Crimea is • The EU must develop a the most important of the few exceptions. This “Crimea Integration long-term conflict prevention and Development Programme”, financed by a pool of government strategy based on dialogue, donors including Canada, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden (as the aid, investments and prospective only EU member), focuses on areas such as democratic governance, Ukrainian accession. economic development in rural areas, tolerance through education and human security monitoring. Another UNDP programme, which has CRIMEA: NEXT FLASHPOINT IN THE EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD? 2 >>>>>> been supported by the EU since 2008, is aimed No similar effort is being made within the at promoting local development through commu- recently launched Eastern Partnership, however. nity mobilisation. Some new EU member states While a Czech proposal called for the Eastern (Poland, the Czech Republic) and private donors Partnership to focus on the frozen conflicts, lit- (the Soros Foundation) pay some attention to tle of substance was included. The Commission civil society support in Crimea within their coun- limited its offer to dealing with the conflicts try programmes for Ukraine. through better integration of the Eastern neigh- bours into the Common Foreign and Security Crimea is not targeted in the political dialogue Policy and the European Security and Defence between Ukraine and the EU. The European Policy, as well as setting up an early warning Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan between mechanism, cooperation on arms exports and Ukraine and the EU only touches upon regional involving civil society organisations in confi- development and the continuation of adminis- dence building in areas of protracted conflict. trative and local government reforms. The implementation of these commitments is poor, however. The OSCE and the Council of Europe FRATERNITY VERSUS FRAGILITY focus on Crimea only through the prism of minority rights protection. Crimea is the most distinct and complicated region of Ukraine due to its history, ethnic com- Due to the 2008 war between Georgia and position, cultural legacy and constitutional sta- Russia, as well as internal political tensions in tus. It is the only Ukrainian region where Ukraine, Western democracies are revisiting Russians form the major ethnic group represent- their policies on conflict prevention in Europe’s ing 58 per cent of the population, followed neighbourhood. The Americans have also start- by 24 per cent of ethnic Ukrainians, and 12 per ed to improve their image through investment cent of Crimean Tatars who had been forcibly promotion and social projects after the anti- expelled to Central Asia by Stalin in 1940s NATO and anti-American protests in Feodosia and began to return since the early 1990s. Bela- in 2006. Nevertheless, the idea of opening a US rusians, Armenians, Jews, Azeris, Greeks, Bul- Consulate in Crimea has met with resistance garians, Germans (together around 5 per cent) from the Crimean Parliament. add further diversity. Crimea is granted political autonomy by the Constitution of Ukraine and Following a similar path, several EU member this status is confirmed in the Constitution states and the European Commission recently of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (here- came up with a proposal for a Joint Cooperation after the ARC). It is the only region of Ukraine Initiative in Crimea. Its objective is to mobilise which has such an arrangement. Crimea has its resources for the development of Crimea while own parliament, which appoints and designates raising the EU’s profile in the region. The EU a prime minister with the consent of the aims at harmonising bilateral and Community President of Ukraine. assistance with a clear division of labour. Participating EU member states will be respon- The most spoken language is Russian, which the sible for a given priority sector (e.g. environ- Crimean Constitution grants official status. In ment, civil society, economic development etc.). fact, Russian is the sole language used in the The central role in the implementation will be public administration, the media and the educa- given to the UNDP. So far, mainly northern EU tional system in Crimea. Although Ukrainian members (Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Crimean Tatar have the same status, these the UK), Germany and several new member are rarely used. A reality check confirms this: states (Poland, Hungary, Lithuania) have while there are 987 Russian-language printed adhered to the initiative. media in Crimea, there are only five published POLICYBRIEF- Nº 14 - JULY 2009 3 in Ukrainian and four in Crimean Tatar. Despite toric and religious places, and between Kyiv and the 250-thousand strong Crimean Tatar popula- local authorities. Often the division lines lie tion, there is not a single Tatar school. between the Russian-Slav and the Crimean Tatar populations. These are exacerbated by the hate Even though Crimea voted in favour of speeches of the Crimean media against the Ukrainian independence in the 1991 referendum, Tatars and the Muslim population. Ukrainian the early 1990s saw the rise of separatist move- authorities have not developed legislation that ments. When the Crimean government intro- would renew Crimean Tatar rights as an aborig- duced the post of President of Crimea, the inal ethnic group. This has pushed the Tatars elected pro-Russian politician Yuriy Meshkov dis- towards radical behaviour, such as illegal land banded the Crimean grabs, street protests and the radicalisation of A number of Parliament and called national movements. Land is one of the major for independence. sources of conflict. The land promised to the factors indicate Separatism flourished repatriated Tatars is also a major focus of corrup- as Russia was re- tion in which local and national authorities and that Crimea luctant to recognise the Tatar representatives are involved. could be the next Ukraine’s sovereignty over the peninsula. flashpoint in Only the adoption INFLUENCE VERSUS GOVERNANCE of the Constitution Europe’s of Ukraine in 1996 When the post-Orange Revolution leadership neighbourhood and the ratification of of Ukraine took a more decisive stance towards the Ukraine-Russia EU and NATO integration, Russia, through Treaty of Friendship, both its increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards Cooperation and Partnership in 1997 (tied to the Ukraine and boosted funding for the Russian agreements arranging the status of the Russian community of Crimea, signalled that it was Black Sea Fleet until 2017) led to an easing off of willing to use Crimea as a bargaining chip vis-à- territorial tensions. vis Ukraine. Moscow’s claims toward Crimea have become more frequent, culminating in the Loyalty to Russia among Crimeans is still strong Russian State Duma’s decision to seek the abro- and this has increased during the last few years. gation of the 1997 Treaty if Ukraine joined the According to a recent study by the Razumkov Membership Action Plan for NATO or forced Centre, a Kyiv-based think-tank, 32 per cent of NATO accession. Additionally, the Russian Crimeans do not consider Ukraine as their native media have created an image of Ukraine as a country, while 48 per cent would like to change country that discriminates against the Russian- their citizenship, mostly to Russian. Importantly, speaking population. 63 per cent of the population would support the idea of Crimea joining Russia. However, there is no The Russian position is backed by the influence it single vision on the future of the region – the same has over the Crimean peninsula, which is stronger proportion would support greater Crimean auton- than that of Ukraine. A constant source of tension omy within Ukraine. Only 25 per cent are in in Ukraine-Russia relations, the Russian Black Sea favour of Ukraine joining the European Union, fleet is also a main source of income for the with 52 per cent against; in Ukraine as a whole, Sevastopol budget and inhabitants. Russia is the support for EU integration (47 per cent) prevails largest investor in the region and the main desti- over opposition to it (35 per cent). nation of Crimean exports – although overall Crimean exports to the EU almost equal those to Tensions have deepened over land, political, Russia. The dominance of the Russian media and social, economic and language rights, over his- the power of pro-Russian political parties is cru- >>>>>> CRIMEA: NEXT FLASHPOINT IN THE EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD? 4 >>>>>> cial.
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