The evolution of the European Unions policy in the South Caucasus

Theintensification of European states' policies regarding the South Caucasus started before the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s and wasdue to the development of ethnic conflicts in the Transcaucasian republics. But up to the USSR collapse and for some time after it Europeancountries had no definite strategy concerning the South Caucasus region, the strategies having started to develop only since 1993. Up to 2008the resources that the EU sent to the region were quite moderate despite its projects (from TRACEA to the "new good-neighbour policy")being very ambitious. As the result the predominate foreign actor in the South Caucasus was the USA the Russian Federation being the mostactive regional actor. The EU role lay within the framework of the general Western policy of outing the Russian federation from the regionby supporting the GUAM countries and the promoting the Nabucco global energy project. In 2008-2011 the EU's activities in the SouthCaucasus region underwent an essential change as compared to the previous period. We can trace the EU becoming more active in the peacemakingand negotiation process. The EU's mediation turned out effective and pragmatic. The adoption of the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan andthe rapid expansion of the European peace-making mission resulted in a considerable reduction of the dividends the RF could get from thesituation and in M. Saakashvili's pro-Western administration remaining in office in Georgia. The adoption of different formulations andinterpretations of the plan led to putting Russia in a very unfavourable position. The EU's "soft pressure", manifested in the active rebuildingof Georgia's economy and in the expansion of the Eastern Partnership programme in the post-Soviet space, led to levelling the possibleconsequences of Russia's rise and of the the USA's deterioration. The weak link in the EU's carrying out an independent policy in the SouthCaucasus is the lack of financial and military resources that it could send to the region. It is due to the contradiction between the EU'seconomical interests, demanding the creation of an energy and transport corridor bypassing Russia, and its democratic standards that theSouth Caucasus states' regimes do not correspond to.However, generally it can be stated that the military events of 2008 enabled the European Union to strengthen its position in the SouthCaucasus and to have a more intensive influence on the processes in the region.

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