Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's 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: A new EU sanctions mechanism targeting malign Russian actions and Albania's recent progress on joining the EU.
Briefing #1: Expanded Sanctions To Target Russian Hybrid Threats
What You Need To Know: Ambassadors from the 27 European Union member states on October 2 agreed to a new sanctions mechanism targeting Russian hybrid actions. Broadly, "hybrid" here means actions carried out on behalf of a state to undermine the functioning of another country, so, for example, trying to impact elections or targeting critical infrastructure. It is expected that the new measures will be formally agreed by the bloc's finance ministers when they assemble in Luxembourg on October 8.
The new sanctions regime is, according to the EU diplomats I have spoken to, meant to plug some of the gaps in the current restrictive measures on the Kremlin.
Essentially, the EU has two types of sanctions regimes: geographical and horizontal. Brussels has mostly used geographical sanctions -- which focus on a particular location or political entity -- to hit Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In short, it targets the Russian government, its citizens and entities, such as companies, that the bloc deems to have undermined the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
In this area, Brussels has gone quite far -- introducing all sorts of economic sanctions on various Russian industries, such as oil, diamonds, and coal, just to mention a few, as well as imposing visa bans, and asset freezes on around 2,300 people and firms.
Then, on top of that, there are horizontal sanctions that are not limited to one country and that target people and companies around the globe. In this area, the bloc has sanctions pertaining to terrorism, cyberattacks, the use of chemical weapons, and human rights abuses. Russian citizens are blacklisted under these horizontal sanctions as well.
Deep Background: Earlier this year, the EU created something of a mix between a geographical and a horizontal sanctions regime -- creating a blacklist of people committing human rights abuses in Russia. The sanctions largely targeted people responsible for the jailing and mistreatment of Russian opposition figures such as Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was released from a Russian prison last month in a major prisoner swap between Russia and the West, as well as Aleksei Navalny, who died in mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison in February.
The sanctions just agreed by the EU are a similar mix. But, actually, they go a step further. The text, prepared by the legal service of the Council of the EU, one of the bloc's main decision-making bodies, and seen by RFE/RL, notes that the EU is free to impose asset freezes and visa bans on people or entities that are "responsible for, implementing, supporting, or benefiting from actions or policies by the government of the Russian Federation, which undermine or threaten democracy, the rule of law, stability or security in the union or in one or several of its member states, in an international organization, or in a third country."
So, in a sense, it covers not only Russian citizens, but also other nationals working for Russia -- and it involves not only actions taken in the European Union but worldwide. Brussels could, in other words, now go after a wide spectrum of Russian activities, not just confined to a narrow geographical area (such as Ukraine) or very specific actions (such as human rights abuses).
The two big challenges going forward, however, will be defining the hybrid actions, or "destabilizing activities," as the official document puts it, and then proving that Russia is responsible.
It will be up to the member states to present compelling evidence that the bloc's legal service can approve. This is likely to prove tricky, especially given that all 27 member states must sign off. It is also unclear how far back the sanctions can go -- or if potential new listings will only be able to concern recent actions.
Drilling Down
- The legal text lists eight different examples that are sanctionable. The first one is perhaps the most wide-ranging: "the obstruction or undermining of the democratic political process," which includes trying to tamper with elections or challenging the constitutional order of a country.
- It will likely be hard to prove that Russia is effectively interfering in an EU member state. However, the new sanctions may open up the possibilities of the bloc punishing Russians attempting to interfere in vulnerable third countries. Two cases in point: both Georgia and Moldova are holding crucial elections this month. Georgia is holding parliamentary elections on October 20.
- The second example listed in the EU's legal document concerns the planning, directing, or engaging in violent demonstrations. Diplomats I spoke to said that this could apply to a situation such as recent riots in the United Kingdom, which began in July after the fatal stabbing of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport. Disinformation helped fuel the riots, which developed strong anti-Muslim and anti-migrant sentiments. If it was proven that Russians were fanning the protests online, they could be targeted if something similar were to occur.
- The third sanctionable offense is activities that "silence, intimidate, coerce, or exact reprisals against persons critical of the actions or policies of the Russian Federation." So, for example, that could apply to something like the hammer and tear-gas attack in Lithuania earlier this year on Leonid Volkov, a former close aide to Navalny.
- Then there is "coordinated information manipulation." A good example of the type of activity this could apply to would be the Prague-based Voice of Europe website that both the Czech Republic and the EU placed sanctions on earlier this year for running a Russian influence operation.
- Another sanctionable offense would be the targeting of critical infrastructure in EU member states. This includes crimes such as damaging undersea cables, but could also include arson attacks on buildings and public transportation.
- What the EU called the "instrumentalization of migrants" could also be targeted, with examples seen at the borders of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, where the Belarusian authorities, often supported by Russia, have been accused of flying in migrants, mainly from Asia, and then sending them to the borders of nearby EU countries.
- The last two items on the EU's list are activities that Wagner and other Russian-sponsored mercenary groups would most likely carry out. The EU would target actions such as "instigating or facilitating an armed conflict in a third country" and exploiting such armed conflicts through "the illicit exploitation or trade of natural resources and wildlife in a third country." That is a reference to illegal ivory or diamond trading.
Briefing #2: Albania Decouples From North Macedonia And Moves Closer To The EU
What You Need To Know: Albania will finally open its first five European Union accession chapters on October 15. This comes after Tirana and EU member Greece buried the hatchet in September over a spat that had significantly slowed down the country's membership bid.
For four years, Albania's membership bid has been tied to North Macedonia's. No longer, as Albania is making progress while North Macedonia is still struggling due to its ongoing dispute with Bulgaria.
The five chapters Albania will open next week all belong to a cluster that Brussels calls the "fundamentals." These are, essentially, the EU negotiating chapters a country opens first and then closes last, and there are many EU laws that need to be "transposed" -- to use the EU's lingo -- into the national law of the candidate countries. Two of the five "fundamentals" chapters -- No. 23 dealing with judiciary and fundamental rights and No. 24, which concerns justice, freedom, and security -- are seen as the crucial ones. Many of the EU hopefuls are grappling with corruption and weak legal systems, and Brussels wants to address that before they join the club.
Deep Background: The green light for Albania came at a meeting of the bloc's Europe ministers on September 24, when the Greek minister noted that Athens was satisfied with Tirana moving ahead in the enlargement process.
A day later, Cyprus, which normally aligns with Greece, also flagged that, to its mind, Tirana was good to go. The breakthrough actually came earlier in September, when Fredi Beleri, the ethnic Greek mayor of the Albanian seaside town of Himare, was released from an Albanian prison. Beleri was arrested and imprisoned last year over a vote-buying scheme. It was a move that soured relations between Athens and Tirana, with Greek officials demanding his release and accusing the Albanian government of politically motivated persecution.
In June, while still in prison, Beleri was elected to the European Parliament as a candidate for the Greek ruling center-right New Democracy party. He was released from prison for a few days in July to be sworn in at the Strasbourg-based chamber.
It is clear now that North Macedonia, once considered the "star pupil" of the EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans, even changing its official name, is stuck. It has failed to comply with Bulgaria's request to amend its constitution so that the country's ethnic Bulgarian minority is mentioned as one of the founding peoples of North Macedonia.
This change, requested in 2022 as a prerequisite to launch accession talks, needs a two-thirds majority in the Skopje parliament, something that, so far, has remained elusive. And it appears to be even less likely to happen any time soon, as the center-right government that has been in power since this summer is less inclined to make compromises with Sofia.
Bulgaria, on the other hand, is preparing for parliamentary elections at the end of the month, so no big political decisions are really in the works. In fact, most Bulgarian parties are in agreement that the ball is firmly in Skopje's court.
Drilling Down
- The fact that North Macedonia and Albania are now decoupled -- after both received the go-ahead to start accession talks in 2020 and both symbolically started accession talks on the same day in 2022 -- is galling for Skopje. Especially as North Macedonia, back in 2020, was seen as a front-runner and some of its officials, albeit in private, were complaining about Albania "hanging on to Skopje's coattails" to get closer to the EU.
- The decoupling is worth watching as it could shine some light on what might happen with Ukraine and Moldova. The two countries are also formally coupled on their current EU accession paths, both becoming official EU candidate countries in 2022 and both symbolically opening accession talks on the same day in June of this year.
- Back in the day, grumbles could be heard in Kyiv that Moldova was just managing to get ahead thanks to the efforts of Ukraine. The question is whether they'll remain coupled next year when both are expected to officially open negotiations chapters -- the same five "fundamentals" as Albania will open now.
- To open accession chapters, all 27 EU member states must give a green light. And this is certainly not a given yet, at least in the case of Ukraine. Poland will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2025. It has recently been embroiled in a spat with Ukraine over the 1943 Volhynia massacre of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian nationalists, with Warsaw demanding a proper exhumation and burial of the victims. There is no indication yet that Poland will use Ukraine's enlargement process to get its way, but don't rule it out completely.
- And then, of course, there's Hungary, which has been a vocal critic of Ukraine's future EU integration and has insisted on Kyiv giving more rights to the ethnic Hungarian minority in the country. Budapest has previously indicated that they would like to decouple Moldova and Ukraine.
Looking Ahead
The European Parliament plenary this week could be interesting. On October 8, the Strasbourg chamber will debate the upcoming elections in Moldova and Georgia and vote on resolutions on both the following day. With Georgia's government showing some authoritarian tendencies of late, and with crucial elections coming up, Tbilisi could well be criticized in the resolution.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will also address the chamber on October 9. He was initially slated to do so in September, but severe floods in Central Europe forced him to cancel.
Later this week, on October 10-13, U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Germany. He will first go to the capital, Berlin, and then to the U.S. military base of Ramstein in the western part of the country to chair the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which coordinates weapon deliveries to Kyiv. Look out for any possible news on allowing Ukraine to use Western arms systems to hit deep into Russia.
That's all for this week! Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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