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Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
@APHClarkson
May 26, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
This has been the French stance since 2014. Robust measures against Russian breaches of international law, conciliatory language in the Gaullist tradition of "Lisbon to Vladivostok" to give Putin and successors an off ramp and position France well if there is a shift to detente
So the balance Macron worked through was in a continuity with signals sent by France and the EU since 2014. If Russia opts to de-escalate in Donbas and back off Ukraine, Crimea will be isolated through sanctions that don't affect the rest of Russia
The outcome for Ukraine the EU has clearly signalled it can live with is a Cyprus scenario. Where the aggressor keeps some gains that are isolated by sanctions but backs off the rest of Ukraine. Once de-escalation happens back to business as usual
The fact that the Ukrainian government was demonstratively unfussed by Macron's visit to Russia is a signal that Kyiv knows the score and can live with it as long as the path to further European integration is clear. With a 280 000 man army Ukraine has agency
Also worth keeping in mind that there is a strand of thought in Kyiv that keeping more pro-Russian regions out of Ukraine for a certain period of time makes it easier to consolidate Ukraine's strength as a nation state. Retaking them is seen as a long term project
Important to occasionally point out that EU policy towards Russia only hardened significantly after Donbas escalated and #MH17. Balance between support for Ukraine and regular dealings with Moscow in areas not hit by sanctions isn't a deviation from EU policy. It is EU policy

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More from @APHClarkson

Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Sep 30, 2018
A multi-tier model will still have different balances of rights and responsibilities and an asymmetry of power between tiers. A core with France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands will always have the power to dominate the rest and fuel incentives to get in the inner tier
With Eurozone states, almost all of which are involved in PESCO, the EU already has a core tier, with a second tier EU members outside the Euro and a third tier in EEA/Efta/DCFTA relationships with the EU. Multi-speed Europe already exists and the UK is unwilling to join any tier
To drag Macedonia, with its particular dilemmas in relation to Albania, Greece and Bulgaria, into UK debates over multi-speed Europe misses what the core of the problem with this referendum is. Greece has veto power to block Macedonian accession into any European integration tier
Read 4 tweets
Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Sep 29, 2018
Raab at one blow dismisses the concerns of Irish and Northern Irish people as the machinations of a "foreign hand". In a long tradition of English politicians denying Irish and Northern Irish people agency
There will no doubt be some UK commentators that will blame the EU for the radicalisation of parts of the English political establishment instead of demanding that English politicians finally take responsibility for their actions over the past 25 years
Rather than fostering a sense of national emancipation, all Brexit has done is reinforce a deeply entrenched tendency in British political culture to avoid taking responsibility by blaming the EU for all ills while at the same time demanding it sort Britain's problems out for it
Read 4 tweets
Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Sep 14, 2018
If the EU hadn't forced the sufficient progress issue we would be in the same impasse we are now. The problem lies in UK internal paralysis, not EU27 attempts to manage it.
The EU should have been much tougher about nailing the UK down on the details of the Irish border backstop earlier. The problem hasn't been that the EU has been too tough. The problem is that the EU has given the UK too much leeway to waste time
By this point it's pretty evident that whenever the EU signals an off ramp for the UK to ease off its red lines the UK government misreads it as a fundamental concession and drifts back into rhetoric based on a misreading of Britain's geopolitical position.
Read 6 tweets
Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Sep 12, 2018
WTF is "SuperCanada"? Does it have more superpowers than Captain Canada?
de.scribd.com/document/38842…
In effect the final deal the ERG thinks the UK can get if a UK government is tough enough in the EU would provide all the benefits of EU membership without any of the obligations. The ERG MPs haven't moved on from 24 June 2016
Enda Kenny klaxon
Read 17 tweets
Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Sep 8, 2018
The head of pro-Chemnitz, an organisation that played a key role in fuelling anti-migrant tension in Chemnitz, is a local lawyer that also founded a cultural club for Russians and Russian-Germans called Kulturverein Tolstoi in 2014. Interesting timing
swr.de/report/der-flu…
Here the link to Kulturverein Tolstoi e.V.
kulturverein-tolstoi.de/?Presse
The fascinating thing is that the German journalists struggle with a worldview they think is laced with contradictions. But in the context of East European Far Right ideologies or Duginist Eurasianism the positions Martin Kohlmann takes fit right in.
swr.de/report/der-flu…
Read 6 tweets
Alexander Clarkson  Profile picture
Aug 19, 2018
A No Deal scenario where the UK government gives up controlling what and who is coming in and out of its borders with the EU and that may well end up even struggling to control what is being shipped in from non-EU countries risks becoming a platform for various smuggling scams
Effectively declaring that your country is wide open to anything and anyone coming in and out and hoping for the best is not a viable strategy. The EU will impose checks anyway to avoid a repeat of the kind of border scams that proliferated in the Balkans in the 1990s.
The UK government expects reciprocity from the EU in a No Deal scenario when it comes to stepping back from border checks while dropping out of all shared oversight mechanisms that enable the EU to ensure that the UK is not becoming a platform for smuggling
Read 5 tweets

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