A captive island. Kaliningrad between Moscow and the EU. OSW Study 41/2012

The Kaliningrad region can be called a 'captive island', because of its specific geopolitical location - it is part of the Russian legal, political and economic space, yet it is geographically separated from the rest of the Russian Federation, and it is particularly open to co-operation with its neighbours in the European Union. Moscow is trying to compensate the region for its separation, offering it financial support and economic privileges.At the same time, it is sensitive to any potential challenges to Russia's territorial integrity - and the centre's desire for control over the region often limits the latter's potential for cooperation and internal development. This report presents the situation in the region, and is intended to help develop a model for its effective regional co-operation with its EU neighbours.

Big business in Belarus - its genesis, conditions and prospects. OSW Commentary No. 113, 2013-09-09

Over the past ten to twenty years, Belarus has seen a steep rise in the number of local dollar millionaires. This has somewhat undermined the myth of an egalitarian model of society promoted through the Belarusian state propaganda. There is a small group of businessmen among the top earners who, in exchange for their political loyalty and their consent to share profits with those in power, have enjoyed a number of privileges that allow them to safely conduct business in an environment typically hostile to private enterprise. The favourable conditions under which they are operating have enabled them not only to accumulate substantial capital, but also to invest it abroad. However, since such businesses are seen as providing a financial safety net for the regime, in 2011 and 2012 some of their directors received an EU travel ban, while their companies were subjected to economic sanctions by Brussels. At the same time, fearing that Belarus’s big business could become powerful enough to influence the country’s political scene (as has been the case in Russia and Ukraine), Alexander Lukashenka has actively prevented such players from becoming too independent. Consequently, Belarus has so far not developed its own elite class of oligarchs who would be able to actively influence government policy. The current informal agreement between the government in Minsk and big business has proved stable and is unlikely to change in the near future. Nonetheless, a reordering of state power giving Belarus’s big business significant political influence would be possible should Mr Lukashenka lose power in the next presidential election.

The European Union and global security: is the EU becoming the indispensable partner? EU Centre Singapore Background Brief No. 11, April 2014

The European Union has developed new capacity as a security actor in third countries, in particular in the area of crisis management. Over the past two decades the EU has deployed numerous missions, both of a civilian and military nature. Moreover the EU has defined its ability to intervene all along the ‘crisis cycle’, (from prevention to mediation, from peace-keeping to post-conflict reconstruction) and using all tools at its disposal (taking a ‘comprehensive approach’). However the EU is still not perceived as a major security provider globally and interventions remain limited to some geographic areas, mostly in its neighbourhood and Africa, with just a few examples further afield. The EU also tends to avoid taking direct action and seems to prefer partnership arrangements with other players. How can we explain the growing activism and number of EU’s intervention with the low impact and lack of visibility? Can we expect the EU to become more active in the future, taking on more responsibility and leading roles in addressing conflict situations? This paper will argue that the main reason for the EU’s hesitant role in crisis management is to be found in the weak decision-making provisions for EU’s security interventions, as one of the few policy areas still subject to consensus amongst 28 European Union Member States. Lack of a clearer delegation of competence or stronger coordination structures is closely linked to low legitimacy for the EU to take more robust action as a security actor. In order to overcome this legitimacy problem, and in order to facilitate consensus amongst Member States, the EU thus privileges partnership arrangements with other actors who can provide legitimacy and know-how, such as the UN or the African Union. As there is no political desire in the EU for tighter decision-making in this area, we can expect that the EU will continue to play a supporting rather than leading role in crisis management, becoming the partner of choice as it deepens its experience. However this does not mean that the EU is playing just a secondary role in the wider area of security, in particular when looking at nontraditional security. Looking at the role of the EU in Asia, where the EU has deployed just two missions, this paper will offer a broader assessment of the EU as a partner in the area of security taking into account different types of actions. The paper will argue that in order to strengthen cooperation with Asian partners in the area of crisis management, the EU will need to define better what it is able to offer, present its actions as part of an overall strategy rather than ad-hoc and piecemeal, and enter into partnership arrangements with different players in the region.