This image shows the first meeting of the North Atlantic Council in September 1949.
One month before this Washington D.C. meeting, a treaty signed by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and nine other European countries came into force, heralding the foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Archival photos capture NATO’s inner workings and public shows of force since the military alliance's founding treaty came into effect on August 24, 1949.
Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two big issues: Getting more Russian money for Ukraine and Armenia’s long road to EU visa liberalization.
What You Need To Know: The European Union and the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized nations are slowly gearing up new legislation that will allow a $50 billion loan to go to Ukraine by the end of the year.
The political decision for that loan was already agreed when the G7 met in Italy for its annual summit on June 13-15. In the communique from the meeting, it was stated that “we decided to make available approximately $50 billion leveraging the extraordinary revenues of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets, sending an unmistakable signal to President Putin.”
There are roughly $282 billion worth of Russian frozen assets in G7 countries after these resources were targeted by sanctions in early 2022, mostly in the EU. And while no one is keen yet to face the legal consequences of actually confiscating the money -- as fears persist it could dissuade other countries from investing in the eurozone and thus undermine the euro -- there is momentum now to get creative in using the funds to financially support Kyiv.
The G7 declaration stated as much by noting that “Russia must end its illegal war of aggression and pay for the damage it has caused to Ukraine. These damages now exceed $486 billion, according to the World Bank. It is not right for Russia to decide if or when it will pay for the damage it has caused in Ukraine. Russia’s obligations under international law to pay for the damage it is causing are clear, and so we are continuing to consider all possible lawful avenues by which Russia is made to meet those obligations.”
Deep Background: Most Russian money located in the EU, the onus is on Brussels. EU leaders, including more Ukraine-skeptic nations such as Hungary and Slovakia, endorsed the G7 outcome at a summit in Brussels just a week after. They unanimously agreed on conclusions that urged the European Commission to take the work forward on this and added, “Subject to EU law, Russia’s assets should remain immobilized until Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by this war.”
It should be recalled that the bloc already has a mechanism in place to send the annual windfall profits from the frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. This is estimated to generate some 3 billion euros a year ($3.2 billion), with 90 percent of it going to military equipment and the rest for reconstruction.
The first tranche of this money was disbursed over the summer.
This new G7 initiative, however, goes a step further, bringing the interest proceeds from frozen assets via a loan that is guaranteed by the G7 countries.
The preliminary division is that the EU and the United States will back this up with $20 billion each, and Japan and the United Kingdom will guarantee the remaining $10 billion between them. But a lot of nitty-gritty legal groundwork is still needed.
Drilling Down
What You Need To Know: EU foreign ministers officially gave the green light to the European Commission to commence visa liberalization dialogue with Armenia on July 22. The move came the same day as the bloc also rubber-stamped a 10-million-euro ($11 million) package of nonlethal military aid for Yerevan under the European Peace Facility (EFP) -- the first time ever that the South Caucasus republic got such support from Brussels.
EU diplomats I have spoken to have noted that the two decisions signal closer cooperation with Armenia as the country appears to loosen its political and economic dependence on Russia.
Of the two deals, the start of the visa liberalization dialogue is the bigger prize -- at least down the road. It would, if concluded positively in the future, allow Armenians with biometric passports to travel to all EU countries except Ireland plus non-EU Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland for 90 days in any 180-day period without any need for a visa.
Ask any official from Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine and you will get the answer that they have all benefited greatly from visa-free travel to the bloc. It is, however, worth noting that the recent green light given by EU member states only represents the first baby steps of a process that will take years.
Deep Background: How long will it take? That's ultimately a political decision, of course. But I understand that the European Commission, which now is the EU body in charge of the matter, wants to launch the visa dialogue as early as this autumn.
This is significant as the European Commission is on its last leg of its current five-year mandate. In December, a new commission should be sworn in if all goes well with hearings of the new commissioners (26 of them; President Ursula Von der Leyen already passed a vote in July) scheduled in relevant European Parliament committees in September and October.
That means no time should be lost by waiting for a new team to take over in Brussels. After the dialogue is launched, the commission will work on a Visa Liberalization Action Plan (VLAP), which is a sort of guiding document for what Armenia needs to do to get a visa-free regime.
It’s worth comparing the timelines for Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Kyiv went from launching the visa dialogue to getting a VLAP within a month -- largely because it had a big civil service that could expedite these things quickly. For Georgia and Moldova, it took around six months to go from one to the other, and it is likely to be something similar for Armenia.
What will the VLAP contain? Essentially, it will follow the same format as with the three other Eastern partners that secured visa-free travel to the EU, even though it is expected from diplomats I have spoken to that there could be issues that are tailor-made for Yerevan though these are yet to be determined.
Armenia will essentially have to undergo reforms in four areas: firstly, document security, including a fully functional system of providing biometric passports and a unified and secure electronic population registry.
The second bloc of reforms is perhaps the trickiest to complete as it concerns migration management and asylum. Armenia will have to ensure strict rules when it comes to readmitting Armenian citizens that sought asylum in the bloc but failed to get it, preventing migration from happening in the first place, and increasing capacity for receiving and accommodating asylum seekers.
The third area is called “public order and security” but essentially contains measures to fight corruption, terrorism and organized crime.
The fourth and final issue is about fundamental rights -- essentially ensuring that everyone has the right to have access to official Armenian travel documents.
Drilling Down
The EU and NATO are still on the beach this week, but look out for two interesting visits on August 21. First German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due in Chisinau in what is a symbolic show of solidarity from the EU’s most powerful member state to Moldova, which will hold a crucial presidential vote later this autumn and a referendum on whether the country should aim to join the EU.
That same day Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due in Warsaw and will travel to Kyiv from there. The West has attempted to woo India for a long time and is hoping the country will be more vocal and practical in its support for Ukraine and opposition to Russia’s invasion.
That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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The Wider Europe newsletter briefs you every Tuesday morning on key issues concerning the EU, NATO, and other institutions’ relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe’s Eastern neighborhoods.
For more than a decade as a correspondent in Brussels, Rikard Jozwiak covered all the major events and crises related to the EU’s neighborhood and how various Western institutions reacted to them -- the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17, dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, the EU and NATO enlargement processes in the Western Balkans, as well as visa liberalizations, free-trade deals, and countless summits.
Now out of the “Brussels bubble,” but still looking in -- this time from the heart of Europe, in Prague -- he continues to focus on the countries where Brussels holds huge sway, but also faces serious competition from other players, such as Russia and, increasingly, China.
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