Wider Europe

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, please click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Bucharest and what is predicted to be a stormy OSCE gathering in the Polish city of Lodz.

Brief #1: NATO's Last Ministerial Meeting Of The Year, And On Its Eastern Flank, To Boot

What You Need To Know: The foreign ministers of the 30 NATO allies meet in Bucharest on November 29-30 for the last ministerial meeting this year. These sorts of meetings tend to take place in Brussels, but with coronavirus travel restrictions hopefully now a thing of the past, NATO has decided to arrange at least one gathering a year in other cities across the alliance. Last year, Latvia's capital, Riga, hosted the foreign ministers. (There was a limited number of journalists present and social distancing was the norm.)

As one NATO diplomat told me, there is no coincidence that a ministerial meeting is once again taking place in a member country on the alliance's Eastern flank. Important meeting discussions aside, holding it in Bucharest sends a clear message: NATO is very much present in a region close to the war in Ukraine.

Deep Background: The alliance's foreign ministers will be joined by their Swedish and Finnish counterparts, the latter only as invitees as Turkey and Hungary still haven't ratified their membership applications. Expect little movement on this front, at least from Turkey. Budapest recently announced that it plans to give Sweden and Finland the thumbs-up in February, whereas the protracted talks between Sweden and Turkey are expected to continue well into 2023. The topic probably won't be broached much in Romania, as it has become much more of a bilateral issue.

There will, however, also be a group of other non-NATO foreign ministers present at the meeting. Ukraine's Dmytro Kuleba will most likely be there, as will foreign ministers from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and Moldova. The latter trio will have one of four working sessions over the two days dedicated to them. In the declaration at the end of the NATO summit in Madrid in June, leaders acknowledged "the changed security environment in Europe" and added that "we have decided on new measures to step up tailored political and practical support to partners, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova."

To follow up with the trio, there will be more joint training, more NATO advisers visiting, and more support for the countries' cyberdefenses. With Bosnia and Georgia, this makes perfect sense as they, together with Ukraine, are NATO aspirants. But what about Moldova? The country is constitutionally neutral, and NATO has only had a civilian liaison office in Chisinau since late 2017. It is interesting to note that Moldova is the only country in the meeting that is neither a member nor with a stated intention to join the military alliance.

Drilling Down

• The Bucharest meeting is symbolic for one obvious reason: It takes place in the room where a key NATO summit declaration was signed in 2008. For Ukrainians and Georgians, this is very significant. It was the moment when NATO leaders -- for the first time -- formally stated that the pair will become members of the alliance.
• No date was set, but NATO has often reiterated that the "Bucharest decision" is valid, even though little progress has been made since. Certainly, expect questions of enlargement, but don't expect decisions to be made, especially since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy symbolically reapplied for NATO membership after Russia claimed to have annexed more Ukrainian land on September 30.
• There will, however, be a lot more talk about Ukraine's (and, by extension, Georgia's) NATO bid in the run-up to, and possibly during, the next NATO summit, slated to take place in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on July 11-12, 2023. The host is hoping that Zelenskiy himself might make an appearance, especially as he hasn't left Ukraine since the war began in February.
• A lot will depend on how the war has progressed by then, but there is some hope, especially among Eastern members of the alliance, that Kyiv will be offered something tangible in terms of future NATO membership. Before, this would have meant giving Ukraine a so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP) -- a concrete road map to join -- but now many NATO officials feel this concept is outdated. Instead, there is speculation that something can be promised to Ukraine once the war is over.
• What that something would be isn't entirely clear, but rest assured it will require some deft semantic gymnastics to please both Easterners who want to push ahead and the more reluctant members in the West. The stick-in-the-muds would much prefer to keep insisting on the "Bucharest decision," with no new or clearer promises for Ukraine.

Brief #2: After Another Russia-Poland Spat, Will The OSCE Survive?

What You Need To Know: Directly after the NATO meeting in Romania on November 29-30, the foreign ministers will travel to the Polish city of Lodz for the annual Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial council on December 1-2. There could not be two more contrasting moods in the two organizations at the moment.

While NATO is increasingly self-confident after the initial shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the OSCE is facing something of an existential crisis. The run-up to the meeting, which in theory should bring together the foreign ministers of the 57 participating states, has been rocked by a spat between Russia and Poland, with the latter currently holding the rotating annual chairmanship of the organization. Russia has been critical of Poland this year, as Warsaw has prioritized issues related to the war, irking the Kremlin.

The spat intensified earlier this month when Poland said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wasn't welcome to attend the ministerial council, pointing out that he was on the EU sanctions list. The Russian ambassador to the OSCE will now lead the Russian delegation in Poland, but expect that this cloud will hang over the entire meeting.

Deep Background: Moscow was very unhappy with Poland's snub, to say the least. In a letter to all OSCE participating states, seen by RFE/RL, the Russian Mission to the Vienna-based organization didn't mince words: "Taking in consideration the unprecedented nature and gravity of the consequences of this decision of the Polish authorities for the organization, the Russian side expects the participants of the forthcoming meeting to deliver a principled assessment as well as to condemn these actions by Warsaw that have not been seen in the whole history of the OSCE."

On November 24, in the last weekly permanent council of OSCE ambassadors ahead of the Lodz meeting, the Russian ambassador to the group attended for the first time since the summer. He raised the issue, speaking of "the failure of the Polish OSCE chairmanship," and, according to several sources who are not authorized to speak on the record, argued that the barring of Lavrov was political and undermined the authority of the OSCE.

A furious response ensued, in which Poland, backed by all other EU member states, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ukraine, said that, on the contrary, Russia was destroying the organization with its war on Ukraine and its selective approach to various OSCE principles.

Drilling Down

• The most pertinent question now is, what will happen in Lodz? It is already clear that it will be a ministerial council without any decisions and no final declaration. (Expect only a statement from Warsaw by virtue of being the host and the chair.) Poland has noted that there is no business as usual as long as the war in Ukraine rumbles on and that the meetings will focus on the situation there.
• The problem here is that the OSCE makes decisions by unanimity. With Russia a pariah, there is pretty much a deadlock on everything. The OSCE budget for next year has still not been agreed upon, and it looks like a solution is unlikely before the deadline at the end of the year. The OSCE's biggest-ever mission, the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, remains suspended since the spring after Russia refused to extend it. And to add insult to injury, three of the mission's staff are reportedly still in Russian hands after being detained.
• Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimer Makey, who died suddenly over the weekend, had been invited, as he hadn't been blacklisted by the European Union, unlike many other members of Minsk's ruling elite. Belarus's ambassador to the OSCE showed up at the Permanent Council in Vienna last week and sided with Moscow over the standoff. Russia often demands that some of its closer allies, notably Belarus and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, follow Moscow's lead. The thing to watch out for this week is if countries sympathetic to the Kremlin will send their foreign ministers or OSCE ambassadors to head their national delegations in Lodz.
• Don't expect any movement on any other OSCE-related issues in Eastern Europe during the meeting. There might be a general statement on the so-called "5+2 format" -- a diplomatic platform tasked with finding a solution to the conflict between Moldova and unrecognized Transdniester, which includes the OSCE, the EU, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. The talks have been on and off since 2005 but have been completely frozen since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
• The OSCE Minsk Group, which for the last 30 years has sought to find a negotiated solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, also appears to be on life support. Baku has questioned the group's purpose ever since its victorious 2020 war over Armenia. And the war in Ukraine has pitted the Minsk Group co-chairs Russia, on one side, against France and the United States, on the other. Azerbaijan might use the opportunity in Lodz to lash out at Poland once again for initiating a recent OSCE fact-finding mission to Armenia near the country's border with Azerbaijan. The report from that mission is expected in late December, which is likely to infuriate Azerbaijan even more.

Looking Ahead

It is possible that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti will meet with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Brussels in the coming days. Last week, their chief negotiators managed to find a last-ditch deal on the dispute over car license plates that has dogged relations between Belgrade and Pristina ever since Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The meeting will likely focus on the possible next steps the two sides can take in an EU-facilitated bid to "normalize" their relations.

Another visit to keep an eye out for this week is European Council President Charles Michel's trip to Beijing on December 1 to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It comes after EU leaders in October held an in-depth "orientation debate" on all facets of EU-China relations following the reappointment of Xi as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. The meeting comes in the context of China's increasingly ambivalent stance on the war in Ukraine but also with the EU taking a more active role in Asia. Last month, Michel toured Central Asia and, on December 14, there will be the first ever EU-ASEAN summit in Brussels.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Monday.

And you can always reach us at newsletters@rferl.org.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, please click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: the fallout at NATO after a rocket hit Poland last week, and how Ukraine stands with the EU ahead of a long winter.

Brief #1: NATO Fallout After A Rocket Hits Poland

What You Need To Know: Late on November 15, there was a nervous buzz around Brussels as news was coming in that a rocket had killed two Polish citizens in a village not far from the Ukrainian border. At the time, many people supposed the presumed "attack" was part of an ongoing Russian barrage of Ukraine, missiles that had been taking out the country's electricity grid.

Was this an "Article 5 moment?" -- perhaps the most famous provision of the NATO treaty in which an attack on one of the 30 alliance members is considered an attack on all. It has only been invoked once in the military alliance's history: after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

As the dust settled, there was more clarity, and then calm. It seemed more likely that it was a stray rocket not intended to hit Poland. Still, everyone expected Warsaw to trigger Article 4 the next day -- a less dramatic option than Article 5, in which alliance members that feel threatened ask for formal consultations, normally in order to strengthen military defenses. This article was last triggered by eight Eastern NATO countries directly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

Through the morning of November 16, it became more and more probable that it was a Soviet-era S-300 antiaircraft rocket that had been accidentally fired by Ukrainian forces defending against Russian attacks. Article 4 was not invoked, but a regular -- and much anticipated -- North Atlantic Council (NAC) was held in Brussels among NATO ambassadors. After the meeting, in which Poland briefed the council, a seemingly relieved NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the press that there was no indication of a deliberate attack, nor was Russia preparing offensive military action against NATO. He also added that "this is not Ukraine's fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility," a sentiment later echoed by the EU as well.

Deep Background: After a sleepless night, a Western official I spoke to on the condition of anonymity referred to the whole incident as "a storm in a teacup, but a big teacup."

Poland was widely praised for having acted in a restrained and measured way throughout, defying some stereotypes of gung-ho hawkishness. Everyone now awaits the investigation that the United States is assisting Warsaw with.

There are certainly some uncomfortable questions, most notably why the rocket wasn't detected by NATO air defenses. Stoltenberg insisted that "we have air-defense systems in place that are active 24/7." He also hinted that NATO is set up to counter missiles that have special characteristics and that the one that hit Poland didn't share those characteristics.

The Polish ambassador to NATO, Tomasz Szatkowski, also noted afterward that the accidental nature of the incident made it harder for the systems to spot the rockets, emphasizing that Warsaw would have to do some fine-tuning.

Drilling Down:

• During the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Poland did ask NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, General Christopher G. Cavoli, not only to increase vigilance but also to assess the need for more air-defense capabilities and, perhaps more importantly, ascertain whether there are weaknesses on NATO's Eastern front. There was, however, no formal tasking and no deadlines as to when this assessment can be expected. Earlier this year, a high-ranking NATO official told me that if Russia were to attack a NATO member, it would most likely be Poland, due to the country acting as a hub for Western arms deliveries into Ukraine. Poland received two U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries in the early stages of the war that, combined with other air defenses, have so far allayed any fears about vulnerabilities.
• Another fear that some NATO allies expressed was how Russian propaganda can use this latest incident and to what effect. One strand of thought is that the Kremlin can attempt to convince Western audiences that now is the time for their governments to cease arms deliveries to Kyiv, as the Ukrainian military is careless, if not downright incompetent. Moscow will also claim that the reason Russia was blamed first, instead of Ukraine, was due to anti-Russian hysteria in the West. Comments from Ukrainian officials -- including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy -- that questioned whether the rocket was fired by Ukrainian forces were met with disbelief by some European officials. They were worried that Ukraine -- and NATO -- might end up with egg on their faces, but also that Zelenskiy's statements could be easily exploited by Russia.

Brief #2: A Tough Winter For EU-Ukraine Relations

What You Need To Know: This week might have seen an EU-Ukraine summit taking place in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The meeting, originally slated for November 25, would have brought together the European Commission and Council presidents with the Kyiv leadership. The precarious situation in Ukraine, however, has forced a postponement.

The working assumption is that the meeting will now take place in December or even January and that it might have to be moved to Brussels, in the end, for security reasons. Another reason for the postponement is that few concrete "deliverables" were expected, and the draft summit declaration, which I saw a working version of, was pretty meager.

An EU official told me on background that while no "real Ukraine fatigue" has set in in Brussels, the "impending winter months will be about hunkering down before we can start delivering on promises again come spring." Despite that, there will be four main strands of the EU's relationship with Ukraine: financial aid, military support, sanctions, and Kyiv's EU membership bid.

Deep Background: While the financial aid strand looks complicated, it is expected to be solved soon. The European Commission has proposed a package of macro-financial support for Ukraine next year worth 18 billion euros ($18.6 billion), with 1.5 billion euros to be disbursed each month starting in January.

For that package to be approved, unanimity among the 27 member states is needed. And Hungary has indicated that it will veto the aid package, as Budapest is angling to secure 7.5 billion euros of EU funds for itself that the European Commission suspended earlier this year due to rule-of-law concerns. Most officials expect that impasse to be solved when the bloc's finance ministers convene in Brussels on December 6. Most likely, they will reluctantly agree to release the Hungarian funds after the European Commission, at the end of November, pronounces itself sufficiently satisfied with the right-wing Fidesz government's recent judicial reforms. And then Hungary will quietly remove its Ukrainian veto.

With military aid, however, it might be trickier. Last week, Brussels officially launched its military assistance mission for Ukraine, with the first Ukrainian soldiers arriving in various member states for training. Altogether, the bloc has provided at least 8 billion euros of military aid to Ukraine (roughly 45 percent of what the United States has provided so far), out of which 3.1 billion euros comes directly from the EU's own financial body, the European Peace Facility (EPF).

One issue is that there is only a little more than 2 billion euros left in the EPF, and those funds are supposed to last until 2027. So, Brussels must either resort to "budgetary creativity" to somehow find more cash, or coax member states to step up their bilateral aid contributions in the coming months.

Drilling Down:

• The EU is likely to impose its ninth round of sanctions on Russia in the coming weeks, but just like its last round of restrictive measures imposed on Moscow in early October, it will be a weak package. EU officials I have spoken to expect the European Commission to present the proposed sanctions at the end of November, with a view to them being adopted in early December. The package will likely include more sanction listings on Russian officials; a ban on more dual-use goods, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes; and updating sanctions on Belarus so they are in line with the Russian ones. Ideally, there will also be a Russian oil-price cap for third countries that will complement the EU's import ban on most Russian oil that enters into force on December 5. A third country oil-price cap will partly depend on continued discussions at the G7 and G20. But don't expect any more extensive sanction proposals after a stormy EU foreign affairs council meeting on November 14 in which Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reportedly clashed with some of his counterparts and questioned the effectiveness of the restrictive measures.
• On the enlargement bid, the official line is that Ukraine (along with fellow EU candidate Moldova and potential candidate Georgia) will have to wait for the European Commission to present its EU enlargement package in October 2023. But there is already a push from some EU member states for Brussels to publish some sort of "interim assessment" as soon as March to encourage Ukraine to make speedy reforms. In early December, the European Commission will issue a report assessing how prepared the Eastern trio is to implement the full body of EU legislation. The report is still being worked on, but I have heard from Brussels sources that one conclusion that the commission might draw is that Georgia has the best "absorption capacity" of the trio. That's EU speak for having a bureaucracy that works effectively in adopting EU legislation in many different policy fields -- for example, the judiciary, agriculture, or economics.

Looking Ahead

On November 23, the European Parliament will vote on a resolution declaring Russia "a state sponsor of terrorism." Like all foreign policy resolutions the parliament passes, it is nonbinding for EU member states, and the designation isn't formal EU policy. But it is worth remembering that the European Parliament tends to be a bit of a bellwether on these issues, with the content of its resolutions adopted by member states further down the road.

The following day, November 24, will see the bloc's energy ministers once again meeting to agree on measures to reduce consumption and lower electricity prices. Some electricity prices have gone down recently after skyrocketing earlier this fall, a rise partly triggered by the war in Ukraine. Expect ministers to agree on joint gas purchases, solidarity between EU countries in emergency situations, and measures to limit gas price spikes. But an agreement on some sort of temporary gas price cap will probably remain elusive for now.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Monday.

And you can always reach us at newsletters@rferl.org.