Wider Europe

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's 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.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two big issues: the meeting of NATO's military committee in Prague and the continued weakening of the EU's Russia sanctions.

Briefing #1: NATO Military Committee Chair On Ukraine's Request To Strike Deep Into Russia

What You Need To Know: The NATO Military Committee gathered in Prague for its annual conference over the weekend (September 13-14) taking stock of two things: the continued Western military support for Ukraine and the readiness of the alliance in case of a military threat. The committee brings together the defense chiefs (usually the country's top military officer) from the 32 members of the alliance and is NATO's highest military authority, tasked with giving advice to NATO's strategic commanders and the civilian side of the organization led by the secretary-general.

After the Prague meeting, I spoke to the chair of the Military Committee, Dutch Navy Admiral Rob Bauer, who has been in the role since 2021 in a period dominated by Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine. Naturally, our conversation centered on Ukraine, especially amid signs that key allies are ready to allow Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with Western-made weapons.

Deep Background: Admiral Bauer was keen to point out that the discussion on allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia did not take place during the meeting in Prague and that he hasn't been part of these talks, ultimately because it is a political discussion taking place in various national capitals, notably Washington, D.C.

But he quickly added that Kyiv's request has merit from a strategic perspective: "If you ask me as a military person, if it is a logical thing to ask for the Ukrainians, then the answer is yes, because basically, in accordance with the UN Charter and, in accordance with the law of armed conflict, if you are attacked by a nation, then you are allowed to defend yourself. That defense doesn't stop at your borders."

He likened the situation to that of someone being targeted by an archer, with Ukraine having the air defenses to protect itself against the arrows but also needing an opportunity to hit the archer too. "That is basically what you do if you attack them, attack their launchers, attack their ammunition storage sites. If you attack their fuel storage sites, then you limit their ability to hurt and attack you in the future. So, militarily, that's the logical thing to do," he said.

Drilling Down

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a decision to allow Western-made weapons to hit deeper inside Russia would entail a direct war between Moscow and NATO. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was even more explicit, saying that the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, could be targeted by a nuclear strike.
• Bauer, however dismissed this as Kremlin saber-rattling: "I think it's primarily a proof of how frustrated they are because Russia has not achieved any of their strategic goals in Ukraine, and that is now ongoing for 2 1/2 years." He added that "you have to take every threat seriously. But I don't think necessarily this discussion will change that threat immediately."
• So, going into fall and winter, what do things look like on the Ukrainian front lines? The admiral noted that both Russia and Ukraine essentially are grappling with similar problems: "Both sides are looking for more personnel, more weapons systems, more ammunition. And both sides do not have an easy task finding those three elements. And once you have the people, you need to train them. Once you have the weapons systems, you need to maintain them. Once you have the ammunition, you have to be able to use it properly. So those are things both sides are working on now."
• Bauer praised Ukraine's summer incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, calling it "a strategic dilemma for Putin," who has pledged "to defend the motherland but can't." He did caution, however, that it remains to be seen how long Ukraine will be able to hold on to the occupied territory.
• In a similar vein, the Dutch admiral also cautioned against too much negativity regarding Russia's recent advances around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, which could open up the front perilously close to one of Ukraine's largest cities, Dnipro. "It's moving forward slowly," he told me. "But it's moving forward at the cost of a lot of casualties. But they haven't taken everything they want. So, it's difficult for them as well. The Ukrainians are defending themselves very courageously and professionally."
• We also touched on NATO's own readiness. While alliance officials have said they still plan to defend "every inch of allied territory," NATO diplomats have told me on background in recent months that there are elements missing, notably when it comes to sufficient air defense, ammunition, and prepositioned equipment in the eastern part of the alliance. These will be some of the issues NATO defense ministers will discuss when they assemble in Brussels on September 17-18.
• Bauer said that NATO now has 500,000 troops at high readiness compared to only 300,000 two years ago. "There's a number of things that we still need to improve on that [have] been discussed. I'm not going to talk of all the details, of course, as you can understand, but I think we can be proud of what we have achieved and...we are readier than ever before," he concluded.

Briefing #2: Chipping Away At The EU's Russia Sanctions

What You Need To Know: On September 11, the European Union approved the rollover of the asset freezes and visa bans that the bloc has imposed since February 2022, mainly on Russians, for undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine. But with the six-month prolongation, there were also two deletions to the blacklist of over 2,300 people and companies: Nikita Mazepin, a former Formula One driver and son of the Russian oligarch Dmitry Mazepin; and Violetta Prigozhina, mother of the late Russian oligarch and Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Deep Background: These deletions follow a pattern in which a few people are delisted every six months ahead of the formal rollover dates in mid-March and mid-September. This time around, the discussions on the removals were concluded on a lower political level already in July in what some diplomats in Brussels refer to as the biannual "sanctions dance."

Normally, the discussions are initiated at the behest of Hungary, which has been publicly critical of the bloc's sanctions policy. Typically, Budapest presents a number of sanctioned people to the other member states in political working groups that it wants taken off the lists in order to give its go-ahead. (Rollovers require unanimity from all 27 EU member states.) These have tended to be heavy-hitter oligarchs with extensive Russian business interests and Kremlin ties such as Alisher Usmanov, Pyotr Aven, Viktor Rashnikov, Mikhail Fridman, Dmitry Mazepin, Grigory Berezkin, and Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor.

Previous rounds have shown that most other member states militantly oppose taking such people off the lists. They have argued it would undermine the whole idea of EU sanctions if people close to President Vladimir Putin were removed and have countered by suggesting that the sanctions should only be prolonged once a year instead of twice. Compromise has always been reached, but the result is a weakened sanctions instrument. Plus, Budapest usually manages to leverage its veto, extracting political favors from Brussels in other policy areas.

After this diplomatic tug-of-war, lawyers from the Council of the EU, one of the bloc's main decision-making bodies, usually step in to resolve the issue by proposing a list of so-called "weak cases" with less legal justification to be sanctioned.

As the EU claims to be an entity guided by the rule of law, its lawyers must be able to present evidence that can be found in the public domain. And like with every other EU policy, those on the sanctions list can -- and do -- take the EU to court. Some of those sanctioned have already won cases against Brussels, and they include both Prigozhina and Nikita Mazepin.

Drilling Down

• This is, of course, a slight blow for the Russia sanctions regime, but the EU has been here before. In March, three other names were removed -- Arkady Volozh, co-founder of the Russian Internet giant Yandex; Russian businessman Sergei Mndoiants; and Jozef Hambalek, a Slovak national and head of the Russian nationalist Night Wolves motorcycle club in Europe.
• In my conversations with them, EU diplomats have tried to play down the latest deletions, saying it could be much worse. Prigozhina and Mazepin weren't that big of players anyway, they say, and the important thing is that the high-rolling oligarchs -- such as Mazepin's father -- are still blacklisted
• There is already talk about who will be delisted at the next opportunity in March 2025. During the EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels on September 11, the Hungarian and Slovak diplomats pledged that, for the next rollover, they will aim to remove Gulbakhor Ismailova, the sister of Usmanov who has been linked to various key Russian assets.
• The statement, circulated among diplomats and seen by RFE/RL, noted that "in our view, the grounds on which the listing of Ms. Ismailova have been based, no longer hold. Ms. Ismailova should be removed from the sanctions list." Based on this, Slovakia and Hungary will maintain this position during the next review.
• Will there be any more? It seems like family members of oligarchs are increasingly seen by EU lawyers as "weak cases," as it is legally difficult to prove that spouses and children are directly connected to the Russian war machine.
• Two possible candidates for the removal would be Galina Pumpyanskaya and Aleksandr Pumpyansky, the wife and son of Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky. An EU court annulled the sanctions against Aleksandr Pumpyansky in 2023, so he is certainly seen as being a "weak case."
• Two others on the blacklist, Aven and Fridman, have both won cases in EU court against their sanctions. The same as with Pumpyansky junior, they remain blacklisted because Brussels has argued that the cases they won in EU courts concern old listing criteria and refer to a previous sanctions period.

Looking Ahead

On September 19-20, I will be in Ukraine for the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. I will be in Kyiv for the EU Accession Exchange Forum to meet with politicians and policy analysts from around the region. I'll be reporting back with my thoughts in next week's briefing.

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.

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's 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.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two big issues: Who will be the next EU enlargement commissioner and the race to join the Single Euro Payments Area.

Briefing #1: Picks And Portfolios: The EU's Foreign-Policy Posts

What You Need To Know: This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to present her team of 26 other commissioners for the period of 2024-2029. The plan is for her to present the lineup to the European Parliament on September 11 in order for the house's Committee on Legal Affairs to begin pre-screening the commissioners' eligibility in the latter part of September. This will allow for the proper thematic hearings with the candidates in the relevant committees to begin in October.

The European Parliament is expected to cull two or three candidates, as it normally does, so the process of getting the entire European Commission up and running by November 1 is an ambitious one. If a candidacy is snubbed, member states have to nominate new people and then more hearings will take place.

Each EU member state gets one commissioner and, last week, the lineup was more or less completed as 25 member states had put forward candidates. (It's 25 countries not 27 here, as von der Leyen is the German commissioner and Kaja Kallas, nominated earlier by EU leaders as the bloc's new foreign policy chief, represents Estonia.)

Getting 25 nominations wasn't easy though -- and it still might not be a done deal. Von der Leyen is pushing for gender parity among the commissioners and, this year, asked that capitals present two candidates for commissioner, a man and a woman.

So far only Bulgaria has heeded her call and there are now only 10 female candidates out of 27, including von der Leyen, Kallas, and the Bulgarian pick, former Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, assuming she is confirmed.

Von der Leyen won't be happy as she did manage to achieve gender parity in 2019 and has always pledged to do so again. So, expect, some late haggling, where it's possible that member states' male candidates will be replaced by women.

Deep Background: So, what about the portfolios? Aside from Kallas as the foreign policy pick, it's interesting to see what von der Leyen is planning to do with the other foreign policy-related jobs. Last week, she announced that there will be a dedicated enlargement commissioner -- in other words, stripping down what is today the enlargement and neighborhood policy portfolio.

That means that the six EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans and the four other candidate countries -- Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Turkey -- will have their own dedicated commissioner guiding them toward membership.

Earlier this summer, von der Leyen said that she would also have a commissioner dedicated to the Mediterranean region, meaning relations with countries in the EU's southern neighborhood such as Morocco and Tunisia, which can't apply for membership as they aren't geographically European.

But what happens if you're a country in the EU's "neighborhood" but not in Mediterranean region? Take Armenia, which was previously under the purview of the enlargement and neighborhood commissioner, and still has strong ambitions to join the EU. Now, it's less clear who they will work with: They could be under Kallas, or perhaps they would be grouped under the new Mediterranean portfolio with countries that can't or don't want to join the bloc.

Drilling Down

• Even more interesting are the names circulating, notably for the enlargement job, a topic that has become something of a priority for von der Leyen. German newspapers, citing sources close to the federal president, reported that she has picked Latvian Valdis Dombrovskis for the role.
• Dombrovskis is a former Latvian prime minister and has served for a decade as a European commissioner, for financial services and then trade. A heavyweight in the EU, he is known to be a confidant of von der Leyen. He has overseen the EU's financial aid to Ukraine, and, if he did get the enlargement portfolio, he would be in charge of the country's reconstruction. On top of that, he is one of only a few senior officials in the bloc who speaks Russian (and understands Ukrainian) and is very well-respected in Brussels and Kyiv alike.
• There are some question marks, however. Firstly, sources close to the Latvian who aren't authorized to speak on the record have batted the speculation away. And while clearly a veteran of EU bureaucracy, he is thought to be primarily "a numbers guy" suited to an economic role. And while his appointment would be great for Ukraine, enlargement is about much more than just Kyiv.
• He is also from the Baltic region. As noted previously, there are doubts whether the Baltic states would get both the foreign policy and enlargement portfolios. That would also rule out Lithuania's candidate for commissioner, the country's former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who, according to numerous Lithuanian officials, is eyeing up the enlargement portfolio or even, potentially, a newly created EU defense portfolio.
• So what are the other options for enlargement? The current enlargement commissioner, Oliver Varhelyi, wants to continue and Hungary wants that too, but he has been fairly controversial, notably by adding extra obstacles for Ukrainian membership, and is unlikely to be offered a second chance.
• There has been some speculation that Maros Sefcovic could get the nod. The Slovak diplomat and politician has already served in the European Commission for 15 years in various capacities and is due an important portfolio. Well-connected and charismatic, he could be a good fit even if Bratislava currently isn't in Brussels' good books after taking an authoritarian turn under left-wing populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.
• Then there are two other names that keep popping up if the enlargement job doesn't go to an "easterner" -- Jessika Roswall, who has served as Sweden's EU minister, and Hadja Lahbib, a journalist and politician who has served as Belgium's foreign minister since 2022. While most other candidates have some sort of economic background, these two, with their backgrounds, would arguably be a natural fit, as they are already well familiar with the EU's enlargement policy.
• However, neither candidate is a shoo-in. Swedish sources close to Roswall, who aren't authorized to speak on the record, have categorically denied to me that they are interested in anything foreign policy-related, preferring something instead in the digital sphere or maybe trade. Lahbib has plenty of critics and has taken heat for traveling to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea in 2021, when she was still working as a journalist.
• The Mediterranean portfolio could suit her better but, for that, she might face competition from the Croatian candidate, Dubravka Suica, who recently served as the European commissioner for demography and is thought to be a front-runner.

Briefing #2: The Single Payments Race

What You Need To Know: The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) started life in 2008, created by the European Union to simplify bank transfers in euros, with the aim of reducing bank fees and boosting both cross-border commerce and consumer spending. It's fair to say that it has been one of the bloc's more successful moves. The system processes some 50 billion transactions every year and, according to the European Payments Council (EPC), the body that oversees SEPA, it has reduced the costs of moving capital around the continent by 3 percent of the EU's average gross domestic product.

First used by the eurozone states, there are now 36 members, including all 27 EU members; the four countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) -- Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland; the quartet of European microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican; as well as the United Kingdom, which opted to stay in the system after Brexit in 2020.

Oddly enough, Kosovo and Montenegro are not yet part of the system, even though both countries use the euro as their de facto national currency.

Deep Background: That could change now that the goal of the European Commission is for the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans and in the bloc's eastern neighborhood to join the system as well.

That would make sense both economically and politically. The bloc is keen to start gradually integrating these countries into EU structures and money transfers are, according to the diplomats I have spoken to, relatively "low-hanging fruit." It would also make it easier for companies from candidate countries to do business with the bloc, plus it would facilitate remittances from citizens of these countries living in the EU and sending money back home. Moldovan Central Bank head Anca Dragu has noted that SEPA membership could reduce costs from the current 20-50 euros ($22-55) per transaction to some 2-3 euros.

When the European Commission presented its New Growth Plan For The Western Balkans late in 2023, one of the main aims was that the six hopefuls in the region would join the EU in the coming years. Speaking in Slovenia last week, European Commission President von der Leyen raised expectations that three of the countries -- Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia -- could join SEPA by the end of the year. This is ambitious given that the respective national banks of the three countries only submitted their official applications for SEPA membership in June and July of this year. Normally, membership assessment takes about a year, and then it takes another six months to be fully connected to the system.

Drilling Down:

• Moldova, however, could well pip the Western Balkan trio at the post. Chisinau filed its application in January of this year and appears to have all the legislation in place to get the green light soon.
• Serbia has "pre-applied" for membership, and its full application should come later this year.
• Ukraine is lagging somewhat behind, but, according to officials in Kyiv, there is a plan to submit the application in the second quarter of 2025. The delay is due to Ukraine's parliament first needing to pass several pieces of legislation, most notably on strengthening the fight against money laundering, and a working group is only now being formed to draft the necessary legislation in that area.
• But what is actually needed to join SEPA and who decides? Decisions on membership are taken by the Board of the European Payments Council (EPC), which is an international nonprofit organization. So SEPA is not actually an association of countries but more of a European community of payment services providers. It is the board of EPC, currently consisting of 30 members, that decides via consensus on membership. The board looks at numerous things. First and foremost, the applicant should show that the country or territory from which it operates has strong economic links and legal relationships with the EU. Considering that all the applicants are official EU candidate countries, this isn't much of a hurdle.
• But then it gets a bit harder. The prospective member country must align with EU rules when it comes to supervision of credit institutions and investment firms, as well as all the necessary anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing. While many of the countries that want to join have these sorts of laws in place, the main goal of the EPC board during the assessments is to see if those laws are actually working, and if they are compatible with the normally more stringent EU laws.
• In the final part of the process, the EPC will refer the issue of membership to the European Commission to check if it has any objections. Normally this is just a formality, and it is likely that the EU executive will have a few of those requests later this year.

Looking Ahead

September 11 is another big test for the EU sanctions regime against Russia. The General Court of the European Union, one of the two key courts that make up the Court of Justice of the European Union, will rule on whether the restrictive measures imposed on Russia's National Settlement Depository (NSD), its central securities depository, and a number of Russian oligarchs, including Gennady Timchenko, Petr Aven, and Mikhail Fridman, are legally sound.

While Aven and Fridman have already won in the general court, the two men have remained sanctioned as their legal win concerned another time period, and the EU since then has updated the reasons for their blacklisting.

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.