The EU's relationship with Russia is crucial for Russia's economic and political development, the stability of the region, the security of the EU's energy supplies and the credibility of its foreign policy. Despite burgeoning economic relations and multiple joint projects and policy initiatives, the relationship has fallen well short of expectations and potential. The EU has toned down its rhetoric about building a 'strategic partnership based on common values', relying instead on day-to-day cooperation in an attempt to help Russia align itself with European norms and rules. But even this more pragmatic approach has produced more frustration than tangible progress.In this paper, three long-time observers of Russia and the EU perform a reality check on the EU-Russia relationship. Christopher Coker takes a look at the situation from a cultural perspective and asks whether it makes sense for the EU to assume that Russia is 'like us', or at least on a path towards becoming so. His answer is a resounding 'no': he advises the EU to take account of Russia's need to reassert itself and come to terms with its internal contradictions. Leszek Jesień looks at the economic foundations of the EU-Russia relationship. He finds that the EU punches well below its weight, especially with respect to energy, where Russia needs the EU more than vice versa. If the EU had a more coordinated and coherent energy policy, it would find it much easier to speak with one voice and to rebalance its relationship with Russia. Katinka Barysch traces the ups and downs of the EU-Russia relationship since the early 1990s and explains why successive initiatives, from the energy dialogue to the creation of common spaces, have not produced results. Although Russia has moved towards statism and away from democracy, the EU still defines the success of its Russia policy in terms of positive change within Russia. This is an executive summary of a research paper published by the CES. The full version can be found at http://www.thinkingeurope.eu.
Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The authors gratefully acknowledge helpfull support from the following members of the ACE-team: Victoria Miickova and Marian Nemec (National Bank of Slovakia), Josef Mervart (Czech National Bank), Jarek Neneman (University of Lodz) and Rita Bozzai (Financial Research Ltd., Budapest). Terms of use: Documents in SummaryBond markets have to fulfil several important functions in the transition process: Through these markets capital can be channelled from domestic and foreign sources to the government and to private enterprises. Thus, an efficient bond market can help to create competition for the intermediation through the banking sector. In addition, government bonds can help to improve the macroeconomic framework through the provision of a non-inflationary instrument to finance government deficits. Behind this background, this analysis gives a synopsis of the stage of bond market development in the Visegrad countries. Apart from looking at the situation of different bond market sections, the primary and secondary markets, interest is also paid to the institutional and legal framework. Furthermore, the integration of these emerging bond markets into the international capital market is assessed. This synopsis indicates that although Visegrad bond markets have already proceeded far some shortcomings still remain. These concern among others low liquidity, an incomplete term structure of interest rates and the absence of markets for interest rate derivatives.
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