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 EU's adoption of a global price cap on seaborne Russian oil and a look ahead to the EU-Western Balkans summit in Tirana.

Brief #1: The EU has adopted a global price cap on Russian oil. How did we get here, and how will it work?

What You Need To Know: On December 2, the European Union, the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies, and Australia agreed on a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil and petroleum products. The cap comes into effect on December 5, the same day EU sanctions on Russian oil come into force.

The sanctions, intended to punish the Kremlin for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, stop the inflow of around 90 percent of Russian oil to the EU, with only some landlocked Central European member states still benefitting from pipelined Russian oil and Croatia and Bulgaria getting some shipped petroleum products.

The G7 nations first agreed to work on a global price cap back in September with the view to achieve three things: Reduce spiraling energy prices, diminish Russian profits on oil sales to dent its war effort in Ukraine, and still ensure there is a reliable supply of Russian petroleum products on the global market as poorer countries in Africa and Asia have voiced concerns about a complete cutoff.

After months of deliberations, the G7 finally presented a proposal to the EU in mid-November for a cap in the range of $65-70 per barrel -- a level reflecting the prices in September, when Russian oil traded at $68-76 per barrel. While the G7 could go alone on this, they desperately want the EU onboard considering the bloc has some of the world's biggest maritime transporters and insurers in its ranks.

Deep Background: For the past few weeks, the EU has gone back and forth on the issue of the price cap and other related provisions. The talks have essentially been about two groupings: the hawks, consisting of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, and the maritime nations of Cyprus, Greece, and Malta.

The hawks dismissed the $65-70 price range, arguing it was toothless as the price on the market now has dropped to around $52 and Moscow has budgeted for a price of $65 per barrel in 2023. A cap around that price, they argued, would do little to affect Russia's ability to wage war, adding that the cap should be as low as $30.

The seafaring trio of Cyprus, Greece, and Malta, on the other hand, lobbied hard for the price not to drop below $70, pointing to the loss of funds for the shipping industry and commitments the countries have to transport oil to poorer countries.

After weeks of talks in Brussels on various levels, the compromise was first $65 per barrel, then $62, before it finally reached $60 -- the absolute lowest the G7 was willing to consider.

Drilling Down:

• The $60 price cap can only fly due to other provisions in the EU legislation. In the text, there is an exemption for maritime transport to third countries "for the urgent prevention or mitigation of an event likely to have a serious and significant impact on human health and safety or the environment, or as a response to natural disasters."
• There is also a clarification stipulating that the price cap enters into force as of December 5 for crude oil and as of February 5, 2023, for petroleum products, giving exporting countries some leeway.
• Cyprus, Greece, and Malta have also managed to get in writing that the European Commission, by early next year, should draw up measures "aiming at preserving the credibility and strategic importance of the union's shipping industry" and a clarification that oil and petroleum products that "originate in a third country and are only being loaded in, departing from, or transiting through Russia" are exempt from the cap. However, Russian oil that is transported together with oil from other sources is subject to the price cap.
• The hawks, on the other hand, have also secured a couple of "wins" in the legislation. One is that the price cap should be linked to a new EU sanctions package on Russia and Belarus, with consultations on its content having started over the weekend. The idea is that this package should be agreed well before the EU summit in Brussels on December 15-16.
• The hawks are also happy that a review clause has been inserted into the legislation to see how effective the price cap is, with a first evaluation expected in mid-January and with European diplomats returning to the issue every two months thereafter. The idea is that the cap can be adjustable and always stay around 5 percent below the market rate.

Brief #2: A reset of EU-Western Balkans relations in Tirana?

What You Need To Know: EU leaders will meet with their counterparts from the Western Balkan six (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) in the Albanian capital of Tirana on December 6.

The meeting is significant for one big reason: It is the first time an EU-Western Balkans summit is being held outside the EU. All the diplomats I have spoken to say there are two unofficial goals for the summit, namely maintain a united front and avoid any fallouts. There have certainly been bad precedents on that front in the past 12 months.

The last summit, in Brdo, Slovenia, in fall 2021, was dominated by fights about whether the final declaration should contain the word "enlargement," as some Western EU member states at the time were reluctant to commit to expanding the club.

That was nothing compared to the acrimony after the more informal meeting between EU and Western Balkan leaders held in Brussels on June 23.

While it was a historic day for Ukraine and Moldova as the bloc's leaders acknowledged the pair as EU candidate countries, Bosnia failed to get the same recognition, and Albania and North Macedonia were once again denied the possibility to start EU accession talks because Bulgaria still had bilateral issues with Skopje.

Deep Background: There are indications the Tirana summit will go a little more smoothly. For starters, it's just a half-day meeting, which simply means less time to fall out. And secondly, the draft declaration seen by RFE/RL that the EU-27 have worked on over the past few weeks -- and that EU diplomats hope the Western Balkan partners will align with -- is both optimistic while not being too critical of the Balkans six.

Since the war in Ukraine began, enlargement skeptics such as France and the Netherlands have warmed to the idea that non-EU countries wanting to join the bloc isn't such a bad geopolitical move after all.

Over the summer, the Bulgaria-North Macedonia impasse was lifted and now, ahead of the summit, the draft declaration that European officials have been working on confidently proclaims that "the EU reconfirms its full and unequivocal commitment to the European Union membership perspective of the Western Balkans and calls for the acceleration of the accession process."

Even the word "enlargement" features now and again in this draft declaration. Sticking points are also being played down. The big one is Serbia's continued refusal to align with any of the EU's sanctions on Russia. So far, this has had few consequences for Belgrade, and the declaration doesn't even single the country out in this respect.

Drilling Down:

• There will also be some "deliverables" in Tirana. A joint declaration by EU and Western Balkans telecom operators will be signed that should pave the way for the first reduction in roaming costs between the bloc and the Western Balkans in 2023, with a view to fully removing it thereafter.
• A recent uptick of migrants coming to the EU via the so-called Western Balkans route has caused concern in some EU capitals. Expect the EU to call on their Balkan partners for more efforts to combat smuggling and human trafficking in Tirana. The EU recently pledged 40 million euros ($41.9 million) to strengthen border management in the region and another 30 million euros will be announced to aid investigations and prosecutions with regard to smuggling and trafficking.
• Some of the trickier issues will be tackled later in December. One of them is whether to grant Bosnia EU candidate status this year. All indications are that EU member states will agree to this when their respective Europe ministers meet in Brussels on December 13, but the current draft European Council conclusions on enlargement, seen by RFE/RL, so far make no mention of this.
• European diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, tell me they believe Bosnia will gain candidate status but with conditions -- a similar deal granted to Ukraine and Moldova in the summer.
• EU leaders might make the decision at the EU summit a few days later (December 15-16). Ultimately, European ministers might not agree on the enlargement conclusions. That has happened before, and there are indications it could happen again.
• It is not only the correct wording on Bosnia that remains to be settled. Bulgaria wants to push for stronger language on North Macedonia in order to pressure Skopje to live up to bilateral agreements, while some Eastern member states want a more ambitious text on Ukraine. It may just be semantics to outsiders, but for EU diplomats this is their bread and butter.

Looking Ahead

The European Commission last week announced that Hungary had not done enough to unblock 7.5 billion euros worth of EU funds, even if Brussels on the same day gave a conditional green light for Budapest to eventually receive its post-coronavirus recovery money from the EU.

Whether that's enough for Hungary to lift its veto on the 18 billion euros in EU aid for Ukraine remains to be seen. Expect EU finance ministers to discuss this when they meet in Brussels on December 6, even though they probably will need an emergency meeting later in December to try to solve all outstanding issues, including finding a plan B for sending money to Kyiv.

Also, look out for the EU home affairs ministers meeting on December 8 in Brussels to decide on the Schengen fate for Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania. No one appears to have any issues with Croatia becoming a member of the passport-free Schengen Area on January 1, but the Dutch still have problems greenlighting Bulgaria's bid.

Austria appears to want to block both Bulgaria and Romania, even though Vienna apparently might soften its stance when the European Commission on December 5 publishes an action plan on how to combat increased migration on the Western Balkans route. The smart money right now is on only Croatia getting the thumbs up.

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 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.