Europe, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines

G8-RUSSIA: Dissent Within, Confrontation Without

Julio Godoy

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, Jun 5 2007 (IPS) - As if the summit of the eight most industrialised countries did not have enough problems in fulfilling its own agenda this week, the group’s members are also aligning in a confrontation along international borders and actions that recall those of the Cold War.

The plans of the U.S. government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military alliance to install intercontinental anti-missile bases in former Warsaw Pact countries, ostensibly to deter attacks from Iran and North Korea, have moved the Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to threaten to reinstall and aim its own strategic nuclear weapons toward European capitals.

In an interview with journalists from the G8 countries at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow, ahead of the opening of the summit of Heiligendamm, Putin said that Russia would “have to respond” to the “strategic nuclear potential of the Unites States, which according to our military experts, will be threatening” Russia.

“What kind of steps are we going to take in response? Of course, we are going to get new targets in Europe,” Putin said, and suggested that Russia could include powerful nuclear-capable weapons to that end.

“What kind of means will be used to hit the targets that our military believe are potential threats to the Russian federation? This is a purely technical issue, be it ballistic missiles or cruise missiles, or some kinds of novel weapons systems – this is a purely technical issue,” he said.

This confrontation between the U.S. government and its allies in Europe on one side, and Russia on the other, the latest of a series of disagreements between Washington and other Western capitals and Moscow, is shadowing the G8 summit, supposed to be a constructive meeting among partners here in this Baltic seaside resort.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to downplay the importance of the conflict with Russia, and its consequences for the Jun. 6-8 summit in Heiligendamm. “I hope that all participants of the summit contribute to constructive discussions, instead of creating obstacles,” she told a press conference Tuesday in Berlin.

Merkel noted that Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush will hold a bilateral meet in early July, “But we can discuss all open questions in Heiligendamm, especially those conflictive questions,” she said.

She also dismissed the possibility of a new Cold War pitting Russia against Europe and the U.S. “No, absolutely no. Intensive cooperation with Russia is of crucial importance for all states involved,” Merkel said.

At the G8 summit, which begins this Wednesday in Heiligendamm, some 300 kilometres northwest of Berlin, the heads of government of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States will come together to discuss global issues, from climate change to more efficient development aid for Africa.

A Cold War-style confrontation of G8 and NATO member countries with Russia was not foreseen in the agenda, but has come to top the list of likely failures the summit is facing, even before it has officially started.

Other possible reasons for a summit debacle are U.S. opposition to a G8 consensus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, improving international cooperation with Africa, and establishing tighter controls upon highly speculative hedge funds.

The three-day meet has also been shadowed by the extreme security measures adopted by the German government, host of the event, whose costs amount to well over 100 million U.S. dollars, and which have led to a suspension of civil rights around the summit venue.

For example, German justice has suspended or imposed tough constraints upon the right of demonstrations in the proximity of Heiligendamm, otherwise guaranteed by the German constitution.

The German constitutional court ratified a ruling by another tribunal in Griefswald, the legal jurisdiction in charge of Heiligendamm, which had authorised demonstrations against the G8, but only up to 50 persons, arguing that a large, unattainable number of police officers would be needed to supervise a larger demonstration.

Demonstrators had petitioned for authorisation for a march of at least 1,500 participants.

The court also ruled that the constraints placed upon the demonstrators were coherent with the constitutional right to physical integrity, the fostering of friendly relations with foreign states, and the right of freedom of speech and demonstration.

Additionally, the German government has temporarily suspended the Schengen Agreement, the European treaty that guarantees the free circulation of persons across European borders.

These measures, the likelihood that the summit will fail to satisfy its own agenda, along with questions of the legitimacy of the G8 countries to rule world affairs, have led to demands that the summit either be erased from the traditional yearly international rituals, or be reformed from bottom up.

Henning Scherf, a leading member of the German Social Democratic Party, which governs Germany in coalition with the Christian Democratic Union party of Chancellor Merkel, said that in the future it would be necessary to reduce the pomp of the G8 summits, which, in addition, could take place in an isolated island.

“We should find a place, at which (world leaders) can come together in an easy-going, relaxed atmosphere, to exchange ideas,” Scherf said in an interview. “These gigantic, expensive events are not strictly necessary.”

The new conflict with Russia, and its political and military consequences, constitutes the crown of an ill-fated event.

In his interview with G8 journalists, Putin said that Russia was being forced to take up anew “an arms race”, and recalled that the U.S. government had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and never signed the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, aimed at ending the Cold War military confrontation.

He also said that Russia had “disarmed unilaterally” and that there is a “strategic imbalance in the world” which his government was trying to correct. “We have brought all our heavy weapons beyond the Urals and we have reduced our military forces by 300,000, and some other steps,” he said.

“But what do we have in return? We see that Eastern Europe is being filled with new equipment, with new military, in Romania and Bulgaria as well as new radar systems in the Czech Republic and missile systems in Poland,” Putin said.

Russia and some Western G8 member countries have been involved in recent controversies, such as unstable Russian energy supplies to Europe, Moscow’s support to Iran and Serbia, and the participation of Russian secret services in assassinations and harassment of Russian opposition members, in and outside the country.