By Mary
Dejevsky
THIS time last year leaders of the Group of Eight
industrialised countries had just completed their Africa-themed summit at
Gleneagles. As the months went by, however, two quite different thoughts
increasingly preyed on the minds of seven of them. The first was: how on
earth had it come to pass that President Putin of Russia would host the
2006 summit at St Petersburg.
The second was: what in heavens name would they all find
to talk about.
This summit is now upon us. The seven leaders arrive in St
Petersburg at the end of this week, and the second question now has two
quite specific and urgent answers. Africa (the follow-up), education, Aids
and drugs will be there as safe stand-bys, but energy supplies and nuclear
proliferation are what this summit will be about.
As it happens, Russia holds the key to both. With its vast
and under-exploited reserves, it has the potential to become the chief
supplier of oil and gas, not just to Europe, but to much of the Far East
as well.
The visiting leaders also hope that Russia will join a
scheme to solidify the nuclear non-proliferation regime and rein in Iran
and North Korea.
We shall probably have to wait for the final communiques
from St Petersburg to discover the extent of agreement. But Putin has been
preparing assiduously for what he undoubtedly sees as his finest hour.
Last week he met representatives of Western non-government organisations
for three hours. He spent another three hours answering e-mailed questions
from around the world on everything from high politics to kissing
children. As an appetiser for the St Petersburg feast, Russia also lifted
all remaining controls on the rouble, making it to all intents and
purposes convertible.
Add the likely successful flotation of the state-owned
Russian oil company Rosneft in London and Mondays announcement that
Russian special forces had tracked down and killed the Chechen enemy No
One, Shamil Basayev (as big a catch as Osama bin Laden would be for the
US), and it is clear that Putin goes to St Petersburg riding high. Yet the
question of Russias right to chair the rich countries club still nags.
Its per capita GDP is, after all, still below that of Portugal.
The technical reason why Russia was granted the
chairmanship is that the other seven could find no reason to deny it. The
USSR in its dying days had been admitted as an associate in an abortive
effort to give Mikhail Gorbachev the international kudos that some Western
politicians misguidedly believed might save him. To have ejected Boris
Yeltsins Russia would have conveyed quite the wrong message about the
Wests support for the post-Communist government. Once a member, it was
only a matter of time before Russia qualified for the chairmanship. This
mechanical entitlement, however, has not prevented the eruption of a
ferocious debate outside Russia about Putins suitability to take the
chair on Saturday.
Politicians, academics, retired diplomats and activists of
every hue have all had their say. The result is a plethora of pamphlets,
books and press articles that cite much the same evidence to reach
opposite conclusions about Vladimir Putin and the Russia he
leads.
One view regards Putin as an incorrigible authoritarian
who yearns for the days of Soviet power and is successfully bending a
reluctant Russia to his dictatorial will. Adherents dwell on Putins KGB
career and connections; the closure of independent (i.e. oligarch-owned)
television stations and the reversion to the appointment, rather than
election, of regional governors. They add the barbaric war in Chechnya;
last years imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the erstwhile owner of
Russias largest private oil company, Yukos, and Gazproms decision to cut
off gas supplies to Ukraine.
The other view sees Putin as a President of and for his
time, who has brought stability and more sound economic management and
democracy than could be expected, given Russias recent history. Adherents
cite the prudent stewardship of the budget surplus high oil prices have
produced; continuing reform of the courts, the codification of laws to
bring them into line with Western practice, and the commercial
considerations that should guide Russias exports of oil and
gas.
Living standards for most Russians, they say, are higher
than they have ever been; Russians can plan with confidence for their
future. They ask why a government should subsidise opposition media
outlets that cannot pay their way, and they ascribe the dissatisfaction of
tiny intellectual and communist-era elites to their contempt for a
president they regard, snobbishly, as their social inferior.
There is a genuine debate to be had here, both about the
nature of post-Soviet Russia and the policies we in Europe should
pursue.
And it is one we should have had long ago. We did not have
it in Boris Yeltsins time because the West was so heavily invested in his
survival. We have not had it since Vladimir Putin succeeded him because,
until very recently, the negative view rooted in old-style Soviet
preconceptions was so dominant. Opposing voices struggled to be
heard.
It is a healthy sign that finally something akin to a real
discussion is taking place. But it is regrettable that this is happening
not because of any heightened curiosity about what is really going on in
Russia, but because of our selfish panic about energy supplies. The
Independent |