Programme Details
The Russian Regional Perspectives on Foreign and Security Policy Programme is being undertaken by IISS with financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The overall aim of the Programme is to establish regional security forums in Russia over the next three years. This will engage regional élites, including government, business communities, NGOs, journalists and academics, in regular dialogue on Russian cooperation with neighbouring states and international organisations. These forums will address such issues as the implications of EU and NATO enlargement for north-west Russia; relations with Ukraine and Georgia outside the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States; the evolution of Sino-Russian relations; Russian cooperation with foreign counterparts in addressing terrorism and drug-trafficking in Central Asia; and greater cooperation to eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Regular meetings will take place in all seven Russian federal districts and the programme will produce an electronic publication: Russian Regional Security Digest, providing regional perspectives on Russia's security agenda. It will be available on the IISS website from January 2002.
Within the IISS project, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation, regional forums will be convened across Russia, with the first phase in Russia's North-West Federal District. The forums will include representatives of the Russian regional elites (regional administrations, business community, NGOs and think-tanks) as well as Moscow-based politicians, government officials and academic community. At the forthcoming conference and workshops in the North West of Russia, we will debate and develop a regional strategy for practical co-operation in the field of cross-border relations covering issues from security to trade and grass-root co-operation between local communities. The scope of the project covers not only those in the immediate area of Russia's Western border from Pskov up to Murmansk, but also inland cities like Velikij Novgorod and across to Vologda in the East.
The proximity of the North-Western Federal District to the enlarged EU and NATO gives it the potential for intensive communication and exchange across the border. However, as the Enlargement process takes place, a range of economic and security concerns have arisen. These do not only include the status of Russia's exclave Kaliningrad, military issues and border regimes but also a range of soft security issues such as environmental hazards, uncontrolled migration, international crime (drug and people trafficking). On the economic side, the Russian government is only now starting to asses the implications of the EU enlargement on its trade with Europe, development of energy export corridors and on the prospects for increasing European investment in Russian border regions.
The EU and particularly Baltic Sea states are also assessing the implications for their economy as well as general political relations with its Eastern neighbour. In the last decade, there has been a range of projects, many of them focusing on military and environmental concerns (e.g. the conversion of the chemical weapons industry and the clean-up of nuclear waste). Since 1998, the EU Northern Dimension initiative has endeavoured to be an effective co-ordinating umbrella for the many supranational and regional actors in the EU working on joint projects with the Baltic States and Russia. The Northern Dimension's aim is to enhance security and facilitate stable growth and sustainable development through co-operation. The EU has also produced its strategy paper on Kaliningrad and after the latest visit to Brussels by President Putin, special EU-Russian working groups will be established to develop practical steps for enhancing Russia's economic co-operation with the EU states and moving towards the objective of creating a common economic space.
This IISS project recognises that integration depends not only on the institutional political and economic context but on the cultural context too. That is why the project has a multi-layered approach to cross-border interaction. The Conference and workshops will facilitate cross-border dialogue by bringing representatives from local governments, the business community, NGOs and other non-institutional actors into closer and more regular contact with each other and with their counterparts in neighbouring states. This will encourage information flows and enable participants to identify common interests which will then form the basis for co-ordination in the inception and implementation of projects. In turn, they should have a greater impact on decision-makers and public opinion.
