Should Prussia be returned to Germany

[Zbyszek]

Russia continues in seeking opprotunity to make unfriendly gestures toward Poland and the Baltic states after controversial statements made during/after recent 60 anniversary of the Soviet victory over Germans on May 9, 2005.

History of Koningsberg is strictly related to Eastern Prussia nad its direct neighbours: Poland and Lithuania. Prussian Dukes used to be vassals of the Commonweath of Poland and Lithuania [Rzeczpospolita]. Like it or not Gdansk, Koningsberg, Klaipeda were major ports of the region and they were linked by history.
It is natural that German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was invited to Kaliningrad (named after the Soviet communist Kalinin). It is diffcult not to read the omission of inviting presidents of Poland and Lihuania as easy opportunity on the part of Russia to display its anger at interpretation of recent history of the region which contradicts post-communist Russian perspective.
It is particularly strange given the recent effort taken by Poland in order to normalize the economic relations and making use of special economic status of Kaliningrad.
I once advocated the status quo of Kalinigrad area and need for making relations with Kaliningrad area a model of new, better coexistence.
I was cooled down by information on this unnecessary unfriendly move of president Putin. It would be hard for me to believe that a mayor of Kaliningrad made this decision by himself.

[mikeaverko]

Payback for Kwashniewski's imperialist manner in Ukraine.

Likewise, the Lithuanian president decided to take a butthead position in not attending the 60th anniversary memorial in Moscow. One good turn (or bad one) deserves another is an old saying.

[Edited by mikeaverko on 27th June 2005 at 10:32]

[Michal_PL]

I think Kaliningrad should be Polish for good of all.
Russians treat it like a province and don't care much about this poor region.If returned to Germans this would dangerously change the political situation in region.
Russian citizens of enclave would rather be in EU when they see how different is their economic situation from neighbours beyond the borders.
Besides border Stalin pointed is artificial and change of it would certainly improve Polish-Russian relations.Poles would see friendly intentions of Russia and change its anti-Russian policy which is more useful to US or baltics than Poland or Russia.

[mikeaverko]

Why of course you think Kaliningrad should be Polish. No suprise there.

The truth about life in Kaliningrad can be found here:

http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.a...rd=Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad today

The Baltic port city of Kaliningrad is the former capital of East Prussia, Königsberg; the surrounding territory is the northern half of that historic German province. In 1945, Königsberg was captured by the Soviet army and subsequently incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the Russian Federation of the USSR and Kaliningrad became the headquarters of the USSR’s Baltic fleet. However, the United States and some legal scholars in the West have, thus far, refused to accept its de jure incorporation into either the USSR or Russia, leaving open a possible change in its future status.

Approximately 1 million people live in the Kaliningrad oblast, 425,000 in the city itself. Among them are c. 25,000 members of the Baltic Sea Fleet, the remains of the USSR’s once-great naval apparatus. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Kaliningrad found itself an outpost – an exclave -- of Russian territory, sandwiched between newly independent Lithuania, and Poland. Poland joined NATO in 1999; Lithuania will follow suit in 2004; both countries are set to join the EU that year. Kaliningrad will, therefore, become an ‘island’ within the European Union.

For years now, journalists and commentators have been describing Kaliningrad (both the city and its surrounding region) in lurid language. There is “run-down housing” and a “dilapidated infrastructure”[1]. It is “dismal and unkempt” with “ghastly Soviet-style buildings in an advanced stage of decay”[2] Perhaps the harshest example to date was an article entitled “Russia’s hell-hole enclave” by the EU’s foreign policy commissioner, Chris Patten, which appeared in the British press two years ago.[3]

Patten’s intervention comes as no surprise as the EU has taken the lead, attacking Kaliningrad in the most undignified terms. The last time the former Governor of Hong Kong participated in a democratic election was in 1992 when he lost his parliamentary seat in Bath to the Liberal Democrats; now he pontificates from the safety of an un-elected sinecure. Chris Patten and his EU colleagues speak about this Russian port city - once compared with Hong Kong as a potential free trade zone - in an insulting and derogatory way. In scores of speeches and statements, they have portrayed Kaliningrad as if it were nothing but a source of smuggling, AIDS, and human waste.[4] With Patten’s encouragement, EU officials have called the city “a black hole.”[5] The Swedish prime minister, Goran Person has said, “Kaliningrad is heavily polluted. There are illnesses there like AIDS and tuberculosis. There is atomic waste. You find almost every imaginable problem in Kaliningrad.”[6] Elmar Brok, the veteran Christian Democrat member of the European Parliament, and a great activist when it comes to bemoaning Germany’s territorial losses in the East, said, “The whole region is a catastrophe. Criminality is higher there than anywhere else in Russia, the regional government is in the hands of the Mafia, the number of AIDS cases is the highest in Europe”[7]; while one book, published by the pro-EU institute, The Federal Trust, gives an upper estimate of 24,000 for the number of AIDS cases in the Kaliningrad region.[8]

Much local media in Kaliningrad – some of which is supported by grants from Western NGOs like Germany’s Staatliche Rundfunk Gesellschaft – also inform local people about their “plight”, claiming that living standards and wages are higher in the neighbouring Baltic States. Television is pro-American and pro-EU – anyone opposing their policies is labelled as a ‘Communist’. Similarly, university students (who also receive support from Euro-Atlantic sponsors like the Open Society Institute) have been strongly propagandised to believe that their lot is much worse than their soon-to-be EU member Baltic brothers.

On rare occasions an alternative voice is heard, like this one:

“Everything I read about Kaliningrad stressed what a cesspool of crime, corruption, poverty and AIDS it is," says reporter Fred Weir. "That seems to be the European picture of the area." But, since Fred lives in Moscow, he has a different perspective. "By Russian standards, it's a really nice region. Yes, they have problems, but their average wages are higher than in other parts of Russia. People drive foreign cars, the supermarkets are much better stocked than in most of Russia's provincial cities, people are well dressed, and you don't see beggars in the streets. Yes, there are some real horror stories in Russia, but Kaliningrad isn't one of them."[9]

With all this bad publicity in mind, members of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group visited Kaliningrad in the days following Christmas 2002 to see who was right – Mr. Weir or Chris Patten. BHHRG travelled by car, bus and train in order to better understand the situation on the ground for those who, in the near future, would face visa restrictions on the their journeys between Kaliningrad and Russia proper.

The contrast between Kaliningrad and Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, could not be greater. Whereas Lithuania, like the other Baltic states, has the dead air of a country from which there has been mass emigration and where only the Mafia and drunkards remain, Kaliningrad is a bustling and lively city. The centre of Vilnius is full of expensive shops selling Italian designer clothes, in which you very rarely see a single client but the streets of Kaliningrad are filled with small shops selling cheapish items which locals can actually buy. Whereas there is little traffic in Vilnius, still fewer people walking on the streets, Kaliningrad has traffic jams and the pavements are thronged with shoppers. (The BHHRG was in each city in the run up to its own Christmas season - Catholic in Vilnius and Orthodox in Kaliningrad). In fact, the number of cars in Kaliningrad has trebled in the 1990s, while the enclave – which the EU presents as the poorest in Russia – is in fact a net importer of labour, especially from neighbouring Poland and Lithuania: Poles and Lithuanians regularly come to Kaliningrad to find work, especially in the construction industry. And far from being “crime-ridden”, as the EU documents all claim, there are no beggars and very little evidence of the Mafia, whereas in Vilnius casinos and clubs offering “erotic entertainment” seem to be the main nocturnal economic activity, and begging is commonplace as is scavenging in dustbins even in the centre of the city, near where George W. Bush spoke on 24th November, 2001.

It should be added that many of the rural areas of the Kaliningrad oblast are poor, following the collapse of agriculture in 1992 and also because Moscow has ignored its infrastructure for the past 10 years, but no poorer than the Lithuanian countryside. But, there are still attractive, small former-German towns – like the resorts of Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk (formally Cranz) – with many fin-de-siècle buildings and a lovely location on the Baltic coast near the beginning of its dramatic sand spit. Places like this (visited by BHHRG in December, 2002) could well become decent ecological tourist destinations (as they were a century ago) were they not constantly the butt of ignorant and ill-intentioned criticism [10]

And what about the AIDS? The British Helsinki Human Rights Group visited the Immunopathology Centre, the main immunology centre in Kaliningrad, which co-ordinates treatment and therapy for all of the AIDS and HIV cases in the oblast (region). In the 10 years or so the centre has existed, some 3,900 people have been registered there, for instance for HIV tests. Of these, 220 were found to be HIV positive, including 19 children. A total of 47 people contracted AIDS, of which 36 have now died. This means that the total number of people suffering from AIDS in Kaliningrad is not 24,000, the upper figure given by the “experts” quoted in the EU-sponsored book, but only 9. (The “expert” in question was the Lithuanian foreign minister.) Far from being the worst region in Russia for AIDS, Kaliningrad is in fact in 18th position. Its rate of full-blown AIDS is below that in many comparably-sized EU cities. Is there something Chris Patten and the EU’s health officials could learn from the anti-HIV/AIDS policies in Kaliningrad?

As for drug addiction, BHHRG interviewed Sergei Frolov the main doctor at the Narcological Clinic in Kaliningrad who said that much of the data that appeared in the Western media about drug addiction in the oblast was coloured by political considerations. Officially, there are 2000 registered drug addicts (0.2% of the oblast’s population). As elsewhere in the world, registration is not the whole story and Dr. Frolov thought that up to 2% of the population may use/have used some kind of narcotic substance, including soft drugs. The main drugs used are a home-made heroin substitute, known locally as “kompot”, amphetamines, ecstacy tablets and methadone. The amphetamine comes from St. Petersburg and Poland; the methadone from Lithuania. So, much of the drug abuse is fuelled from the neighbouring “reformed” EU candidate countries.

But these determined attacks on Kaliningrad’s image all have a clear purpose: to present the territory as highly problematic, in order to provide a justification for the EU’s determination to subject it to an incipient blockade which will lead to its decoupling from Russia and the conjuring up a new identity. Several proposals have been put forward as to what this should be – another Baltic state? part of the EU itself? a return to Germany? But none of these solutions have gained resonance, despite efforts by some to show that there is such a thing as a separate Kaliningrad “identity” or, alternatively, a return to the Germanic past with the re-adoption of the name “Königsberg”. A more “European” solution proposed for the oblast is for it to become a kind of Euro-protectorate under the aegis of a body like the Council of Europe.

The language used to discuss Kaliningrad’s future is itself futuristic. According to the ‘experts’, the region is to be a kind of “laboratory of Russia’s political integration with Europe” … a “pilot region” according to Kaliningrad Duma member, Solomon Ginzburg.[11] “Moscow’s strategic aim should be making Kaliningrad a Euroregion that could be integrated into the European economic, legal and humanitarian space”[12] European institutions have been active in Kaliningrad for some time, in particular the TACIS programme which targets the environment, energy and (inevitably) AIDS as ongoing projects. Needless to say, the major beneficiaries of these activities – one of which involves the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of “training trainers” – are German, Swedish and Danish companies. Leaving aside the worthlessness of much of this, the presence of organizations like TACIS which has spent €39.9m. over the past ten years, acts as a local honey pot around which hungry local bees buzz to line their own pockets. TACIS/PHARE has been fingered in the past for corrupt practices in the former Soviet Union and like other EU programmes it is inadequately audited.[13]

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[1] Nick Coleman “Exclave’s future hangs in air”, The Baltic Times, 23-29th January 2003

[2] Richard J. Krickus, The Kaliningrad Question, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2002

[3] Chris Patten, “Russia’s hell-hole enclave”, The Guardian, 7/4/01

[4] See for instance his speech on 6th March 2002 in Svetlogorsk, http://www.europaworld.org/issue72/t...lenges8302.htm

[5] http://www.russiajournal.com/print/r...ws_28963.html. Another typical report can be seen at http://www.worldbank.org/transitionn...1/pgs41-42.htm

[6] Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18th January 2001

[7] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29th May 2002

[8] See edited by James Baxendale, Stephen Dewar and David Gowan, The EU and Kaliningrad, (Federal Trust: London, December 2000)

[9] Fred Weir “Russia Faces EU’s New Frontier”, Christian Science Monitor, 23/7/02

[10] Nick Coleman (op. cit.) describes Zelenogradsk as a place where the buildings “are now collapsing, the streets are potholed, and most work is in the grey economy”. Despite a few Soviet eyesores, BHHRG found Zelenogradsk to be a charming place.

[11] Rossbalt, 8/1/2003

[12] Alexander Sergounin “The Russian post-Communist discourse on Northern Europe: A chance for region-building? ” Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University http://www.bd.lst.se/dimensionen/rapport/16.pdf

[13] http://www.cbss.st/documents/cbsspre...baFile1218.doc ; http://www.euro-know.org/dictionary

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http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.a...rd=Kaliningrad

The New Visa and Travel Document Regime

The EU’s reaction to these events is highly revealing of its true ideology and motives. The inexorable advance of Euro-Atlantic institutions into the space formerly occupied by the Warsaw Pact has always been justified with slogans about “bringing down borders”, and by the promise that “no new dividing lines will be created in Europe”.[1] For example, in 1996, Dr. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, State Secretary in the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs said that “It is the unanimous opinion of all the EU countries that these steps towards integration must take place in a way that no new dividing lines emerge in Europe”[2] This slogan is repeated by both NATO and Eurocrats alike. But, like so much else in the European model, this slogan is deeply misleading. Far from insisting that its enlargement creates no new dividing lines in Europe, EU policy towards Kaliningrad has been quite specifically devoted to creating dividing lines where none existed before.

For over a year, EU policy has been directed at imposing a new system of visas which will control the goods and people who cross Lithuania overland from Kaliningrad to other parts of Russia. Despite numerous protests by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that Russia would “never” accept such a visa regime, Russia did indeed agree to it in November. From 1st January 2003, the special arrangements granted to truck drivers, old age pensioners and people living near the Lithuanian border were suspended; from 1st July 2003, all transit passengers from Kaliningrad to other parts of Russia travelling by train will have to obtain a “Facilitated Travel Document”, which the Lithuanian authorities can refuse to grant. Since the concept of “Lithuanian authorities” is a rather theoretical notion – the former president, Valdas Adamkus, was an American citizen until he became president, while the chief of the Lithuanian army went to the same army college as Colin Powell – it is obvious that the West will have obtained, through this agreement, the right to say who can travel to Kaliningrad and who cannot. A new dividing line has been created in Europe where none existed before.

The imposition of this new travel regime flies in the face not only of the promise not to erect any new barriers, but also of necessity and historical precedent. It is simply not necessary for people transiting Lithuania by rail to have a transit visa. Facilities already exist at the two international railway stations, Vilnius and Kaunas, for checking people’s papers before they leave the station. Indeed, passengers arriving by train from Kaliningrad to Vilnius must show their passports before leaving the platform, at a small customs post which has been built on it. To leave the station they have to pass through a passport control point and up and over a bridge onto the main concourse, all of which are guided by a high metal fence forming an effective cage from which any attempt to escape would be as obvious - and futile - as trying to avoid the old East German border guards at the Friedrichstrasse station in East Berlin before 9th November, 1989.

History, therefore gives us a precedent for a most severe border regime for controlling transit passengers. However, even Communist East Germany was not quite so completely restrictive as the new model imposed by the EU: West Germans could drive to West Berlin along a motorway through East Germany without having to obtain any special visa. If the ‘exclave’ of West Berlin was allowed to exist in this way, why should not the exclave of Kaliningrad have a similar transit regime? Does the EU really need a more closed system than the GDR?

Transit by rail is the main means of travel for those wishing to leave/enter the oblast. There are few flights from the small, local airport which has not been upgraded, no doubt deliberately. On top of this, there is no public transport connecting the airport to the city. A ferry service between Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg was recently opened, but the journey takes 45 hours, on top of which the fare is very expensive. In 2001 there were 960,000 border crossings between Kaliningrad and its neighbours by rail, 560,000 by car and 105,000 by air. Some commentators claim that at least 40% of its inhabitants have never been to mainland Russia[3] and 70% don’t have relatives there at all.[4] However these assertions beggar belief as Kaliningrad’s population is almost entirely composed of former Soviet citizens and their children from Russia and the other CIS republics, making it natural for there to be a great deal of travel between the region and the CIS, including Russia.

There will, therefore, be huge pressure on the Lithuanian authorities to process visas. While they are confident that with the opening of a second consulate at the northern Sovietsk border they will be able to issue as many as 1000 per day, this seems optimistic, especially as the “EU paper says Lithuania will maintain a “sovereign right” to refuse entry to Russian citizens”[5] seemingly without reason or recourse to law. There is also the question of cost. The proposed facilitated travel document is going to be free or (sting in the tail) available “at a very low cost” according to the Joint Statement of the European Union and the Russian Federation issued on 11th November 2002.

The following documents will be needed in the future to enter Lithuania and Poland: a Russian from Kaliningrad wanting to transit Lithuania, and vice versa, needs a grazhdanskii passport (citizen’s passport) plus an additional piece of paper, a vkladysh which the customs’ officers can stamp. Lithuanians can enter Kaliningrad with a passport but must register with the authorities within three days. Poles need vouchers as well as passports to cross the Kaliningrad exclave. Initially it looked as though military personnel could cross Lithuania with a voennyi billet (military ticket) but, in order to be in full compliance with EU regulations Lithuania recently introduced legislation that demands a passport from them. According to existing Russian regulations, a soldier cannot get such a passport. Soon after the new rules ‘kicked-in’, 5 soldiers were refused transit by Lithuanian customs’ officials.

But supporters of the new visa/FTD regime are enthusiastic, telling BHHRG that it will “clean up” the oblast by stopping cross-border mafia activity including the smuggling of cigarettes and cars. However, serious smugglers always seem to find a way, not least by bribing border guards or corrupt officials. The real victims of the new arrangements will be an army of small traders – Poles, Lithuanians and Russians – who eke a living out of cross border trade. BHHRG’s representative met Polish and Russian market traders in Klaipeda whose products were cheaper for local Lithuanians than those available in local shops. The local customers expressed worries that it might disappear when the new visa regime is introduced, a view confirmed by the market vendors who talked about growing difficulties in crossing the border. Poland’s eastern border region is wracked by unemployment and poverty. The new visa regime will only intensify these peoples’ suffering – something of no concern to bureaucrats in Brussels and Moscow.

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[1] This slogan is repeated by Nato-crats and Eurocrats alike. See, for instance, “The Membership Action Plan: Keeping NATO's door open,” by Ambassador Klaus-Peter Klaiber, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, The Nato Review, No. 2, Summer 1999, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/1999/9902-05.htm; “We want Russia to be part of the New Europe, we want no new dividing lines. That is a commitment we take very seriously,” statement by Vice-President Al Gore, 11th February 1998, Voice of America, http://www.fas.org/man/nato/news/1998/980211b_voa.htm; “President Chirac said explicitly that he did not want any new treaty between these pioneer states, no treaty within the Treaty, no new dividing lines,” Interview with Wilfred Maartens, Berlin, 29th June 2000, EPP News, http://www.eppe.org/news/n19_eng_006.asp

[2] Said on the occasion of the NACC Ministerial Meeting in Brussels, 11th December, 1996, http://www.austria.org/press/pr961211.htm

[3] http://www.Pravda.Ru 24/7/02

[4] Conversation with journalist, Ludmila Filatova, Kaliningrad, December 2002

[5] RFE/RL 22/10/2002

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http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.a...rd=Kaliningrad

Russia's policy towards Kaliningrad

The official view is that Russia has ‘fought all the way’ to preserve its sovereignty and protect the rights of Kaliningrad’s inhabitants. As negotiations between Russia and the EU over the transit issue dragged on during 2002 the rhetoric coming from Moscow was uncompromising. The EU’s visa plans for Kaliningrad were “worse than the Cold War” and would “divide the sovereignty of Russia”. Mr. Putin, whose in-laws come from Kaliningrad oblast, “flatly rejected the visa plan” and Russia “will do its utmost to guarantee totally the rights of its citizens living in Kaliningrad”[1]

But other influential voices were singing from a different song sheet. Writing in the main Lithuanian daily, Lietuvos Rytas, leading Russian commentator Vladimir Pozner called the proposed visa regime “Russia’s problem”, adding “Lithuania has the right to demand visas from those who travel across its territory” There is nothing to discuss”.[2] It should be added that Pozner has strong contacts with the Western establishment having co-hosted the Phil Donahue show in New York during the early 1990s. Pozner grew up in the US where his father was a Soviet trade representative as cover for his service as a KGB officer. Despite his family’s KGB past, Pozner has generally reflected the Western-orientation of the new Russian elite, which of course also includes ex-KGB officers. Pozner’s understanding for Lithuania’s visa policy may be taken as likely to reflect the coincidence of the real official Moscow line with the US/EU position.

Therefore, it was no surprise that two weeks later on 22nd October a “breakthrough” was announced at the Luxembourg summit between the EU and Russia: Moscow now accepted the need for a simple visa regime. As on numerous other occasions over the past ten years - including acquiescing to NATO expansion to the Baltic States - Russia had caved in to Western demands. The Moscow press “savaged the deal” saying that Russia has been put in a “humiliating position”.[3]

However, an overview of Moscow’s policy towards the oblast shows that this disregard for its citizens is nothing new. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Moscow has played a duplicitous game in Kaliningrad, but its meddling in the internal affairs of the region intensified after Vladimir Putin’s election as Russia’s president in March 2000. This came to a head with the gubernatorial elections in November, 2000.

The first elections for regional governors were held in Russia in 1996. Up to this time Kaliningrad had been run by a Yeltsin appointee, Yuri Matochkin. But Matochkin was beaten in the second round of voting by the then manager of Kaliningrad’s fishing port, Leonid Gorbenko. In a clash of interests familiar to BHHRG in many other parts of the former Communist bloc, Gorbenko was viewed as the ‘local’ man who had vowed to promote self-sufficiency for Kaliningrad - but within a sovereign Russia - while Matochkin and his allies favoured familiar new world order policies, prioritising foreign investment; such people were silent on Kaliningrad’s place in the Russian Federation.

After his election victory, defeated supporters of Mr. Matochkin, like Kaliningrad Duma deputy, Solomon Ginszburg, continued to hound Gorbenko and, at the same, time reinforce their contacts with foreign, mainly European, governments. Mr. Gorbenko’s term in office, 1997-2000, was declared to have been “wasted years” during which the governor “was reluctant to develop international contacts and especially foreign capital[4] Presumably, Mr. Gorbenko’s opponents wanted the Kaliningrad region to be run for the benefit of Western businessmen rather than its own inhabitants. Foreign investment in these circumstances has tended to mean a ‘fire sale’.

The campaign against Gorbenko was not helped by the fact that the economic situation had improved during his period in office -- despite the fact that Kaliningrad suffered, like all Russia’s regions, during the financial meltdown of 1998. However, its prospects were undoubtedly enhanced by its status within Russia as a free economic zone (FEZ) -- later changed to special economic zone (SEZ) – which afforded the region special tax and tariff breaks. Despite Gorbenko’s reputation for being hostile to DFI, foreign investors were showing an interest: in 1999 BMW invested $25m. in a joint venture to manufacture vehicles in Kaliningrad.

In July 2002 journalists were writing that “until recently, it all went rather well. Kaliningrad’s standard of living, much lower than Russia proper 10 years ago, surged ahead”[5] But Western commentators were quick to warn “negative opinions about this situation cannot be altered by the facts”[6] the ‘facts’ being that “last year [Kaliningrad] reported a substantial increase in real income of the inhabitants in relation to 1999 (26.8% compared to the Russian average of 12.7%) and inflation was lower than nationwide (17.5% to 20.2%)”.[7] Unemployment is also low despite the propaganda to the contrary. BHHRG was told that it stood at c. 2%-3% and that anyone who wanted a job could find one in the hundreds of small businesses that have been set up.

Help, however, was at hand. Despite the fact that Gorbenko had supported his election, President Putin was not going to return the favour. As the gubernatorial elections of 2000 approached the newly-elected president threw his weight behind the candidacy of the commander of the Baltic Sea Fleet, Alexander Yegorov, a political novice. A media blitz against Gorbenko had been underway for some time. According to Radio Free Europe,[8] “independent NTV has done a fair amount to spoil his image” with an exposée of the governor’s alleged corrupt activities on the investigative programme Itogi in December 1999. This was followed by more damaging allegations in the local Kaliningrad media.

After such a blisteringly negative media campaign it was not surprising to find that Gorbenko lost the election in November, 2000 to Yegorov by 34% to 56%. However, only 47% of the population turned out to vote in the second round and a further 8% spoilt their ballot papers. So, it was hardly a massive endorsement of Yegorov even if it was a serious defeat for Gorbenko. It was also called a “dirty election” and even Mr. Gorbenko’s detractors noted the virulence of the campaign against him.[9] Why was this so? One reason may be that economic improvements in Kaliningrad, especially at the port, took work and profits away from neighbouring St. Petersburg, its main competitor. As a former member of the St. Petersburg city apparatus under its late mayor, Anatoli Sobchak, Putin may have been encouraged to help his former employers by shoeing in a more amenable ‘competitor’.

Other rivalries may have played their part. It was rumoured that the BMW dealership in Moscow was unhappy with Mr. Gorbenko’s BMW plant as “in all, BMW hopes that costs [in Kaliningrad] will be about 20% less than BMW cars that are imported into Russia”. In other words, BMW dealers in mainland Russia (particularly the capital) saw their profit margins threatened.[10]

Originally the idea for free economic zones – in Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia- was to give a boost to regions with particular difficulties. But, the idea wasn’t very well thought through. When Russia’s new (greedy and unprincipled) business class saw that FEZs meant unwelcome competition, they pressed for their closure. In fact, no proper legislation was ever passed to regulate their operation, something which alarmed foreign investors. In 1995, to placate critics, Kaliningrad’s FEZ status was replaced by the less favourable SEZ. Then, after Yegorov’s election, a new tax code was passed in January 2001 that all but removed Kaliningrad’s competitive status. There were demonstrations in the city and the plan was dropped. No doubt, with knotty hurdles like visas to be overcome it was thought better to put issues like tax and tariffs on to the back-burner for the moment.

But, it is also the case that Putin’s policy of increasing cooperation with the West would involve a continuing acquiescence in Kaliningrad’s “black hole” status as well as capitulating to the EU’s demands over visas. All of which has taken place. According to the Council of Baltic Sea States there has been “no improvement in policy making” since Yegorov took power.

The answer to these seemingly destructive policies lies in the EU’s and NATO’s geo-political ambitions. Kaliningrad used to be a major base for the Russian navy. Its port is ice-free. By controlling the goods which pass from it to the rest of Russia, the EU can slowly choke off the enclave and entangle within its sphere of interest the last remaining outpost of Russian power on the southern coast of the Baltic. With Kaliningrad more and more enmeshed in Euro-regulation, Russia will have to fall back on St. Petersburg as her only outlet, along with the nearby Primorsk oil terminal. The Baltic, which is already to all intents and purposes a NATO lake, will become so even more if Russia’s navy loses its Kaliningrad base.

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[1] Baltic Times 10th June 2002

[2] Rokas M. Tracevskis “Lithuania to end visa-free travel for Kaliningraders” Baltic Times, 3rd –9th October, 2002

[3] Gregory Feifer “Moscow loses negotiations over Kaliningrad”, RFE/RL, 15/11/02

[4] http://www.batory.org.pl/ftp/program/forum/rap1eng.pdf

[5] Matthew Fisher, National Post, 18/7/02

[6] http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/epub/eprace/02/02

[7] ibid

[8] RFE/RL 19/4/2000

[9] see Krickus op. cit.

[10] see Krickus op. cit. p.200

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http://www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.a...rd=Kaliningrad

Strategy for the endgame for Kaliningrad

It is for these reasons that the EU proposed the new visa regime. Lithuania did not demand it, and Lithuania was not even a signatory to the agreement on Kaliningrad between the EU and Russia. [1] (The Lithuanians, bizarrely, still claim that this agreement is designed to protect their sovereignty!) Europe alleges that the new regime is necessary to conform with the EU’s laws; but Lithuanian will not join until May 2004, while the new visa regime applies already, and it will not join the Schengen agreement (which abolishes all border controls between member states) until 2006 or 2007. In any case, it would be possible for Lithuania not to join Schengen, as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark are not members of it.

With the EU controlling access to Kaliningrad, it will demand an ever greater say in the internal affairs of the enclave. It will present these demands as a way of easing the restrictions it has itself imposed. This process has already started. Even before the agreement was reached on the visas, the EU suggested that Kaliningrad had “an interest in adopting EU technical norms and standards to enable it to take full benefit from this improved market access”.[2] Given that the states which are about to join the EU are economically dead, while Kaliningrad is extremely economically vibrant, the imposition of expensive and cumbersome EU norms on its products would be nothing but a recipe for disaster. As EU candidate countries, Poland and Lithuania are the largest exporters to Kaliningrad; they, too, will lose valuable revenue once these policies come into play.

Nevertheless, the vultures are out: “EU standards should be established for Kaliningrad produced goods”[3] A new border crossing for cargo traffic between Poland and Kaliningrad at Lazdijai-Ognodniki has been mooted but it must be Euro “2/3 Certified” as not harmful to the environment. Therefore, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to harass and impede trade in this part of Europe.

One does not have to draw attention to the maximalist aims of certain German organisations which seek to recuperate East Prussia to see the big picture.[4] The EU may not wish to establish formal sovereignty over the enclave, but it will seek to chip away inexorably at its self-government. One aim will be to make Kaliningrad buy energy from Europe. Denmark has already helped build a “wind farm” on the coast, while the EU has already suggested that Kaliningrad cease importing gas from Russia and integrate itself in the “Central European grid” instead.[5]

Such a policy dovetails with other aspects of EU energy policy elsewhere in the region. All accession countries are under pressure to get rid of their national sources of energy and to import energy instead from Western Europe. The EU demands that Lithuania close its nuclear generator at Ignalina starting in 2005; Bulgaria began to shut down its nuclear plant at Kozloduy in December, 2002. This will happen before the end of the decade. There is considerable pressure on the Czechs to close their nuclear reactor at Temelín. Finally, the EU will also require that Poland close its remaining coal mines and sack tens of thousands of miners. German coal miners, meanwhile, are subsidised to the tune of some $50,000 per miner per year. Recently residents of the small East German village of Horny were told to pack their bags by September 2003 to make way for an extension of the local heavily-subsidised open cast brown coal mine.

Such is the new imperialism. Like the USA, the EU would baulk at the suggestion that it seeks “anyone else’s territory”. In reality, the EU and NATO march in lockstep to ensure that nowhere in Central or Eastern Europe remains outside their control.

And what is Russia’s role in all this? After a few verbal protests, Moscow is as compliant as ever when it comes to sacrificing the interests of ordinary Russian citizens to Western demands. On 3rd February 2003, Radio Free Europe reported that the new visa regime was now fully operational and gave a hint of its everyday realities: on that day alone, 9 people had been refused visas to transit Lithuania.[6]

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[1] “The European Union will introduce the necessary legislation to establish by 1st July 2003 a Facilitated transit Document scheme to apply for the transit of Russian citizens only between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia by land.” Paragraph 5 of “Joint Statement of The European Union the The Russian Federation on Transit Between the Kaliningrad Region and the Rest of The Russian Federation”, done at Brussels, 11th November 2002.

[2] idib., p.2, section entitled “Movement of Goods”

[3] See Sergounin op. cit.

[4] »Die Aufgaben der Zukunft für Ostpreußen«, Veranstaltung der Regionalgruppe Süd des »Bundes Junges Ostpreußen« in Ansbach. These East Prussian irredentists use the same language as the EU (e.g. “black hole”) when referring to Kaliningrad (which they call Königsberg, just as they refer to the surrounding oblast’ as “Northern East Prussia”. This group proposes the creation of a “Euroregion Prussia” to include parts of Lithuania and Poland. http://www.webarchiv-server.de/pin/a.../3801ob22.htm. The association of expellees from East Prussia publishes a newspaper, Das Ostpreußenblatt, http://www.ostpreussenblatt.de/

[5] “Kaliningrad could either maintain its link with the Russian electricity grid or switch to the Central European grid, which is connected to the main EU electricity grid, UCTE.” Communication from the European Commission to the Council, , “The European Union and Kaliningrad”, 17th January 2001, p. 5 (the section entitled “Energy Supplies”).

[6] RFE/RL 3/2/2003

[Edited by mikeaverko on 27th June 2005 at 17:11]

[Michal_PL]

Kaliningrad economy hangs on thanks to illegal trade and smuggle of cigarettes and vodka through border with Poland.I still consider Kaliningrad should be given to Poland.there's no future for it in Russia .these territories have always belonged to Germany or were a Polish feud.Since Russia conquered it became ruined meaningless zone.
Russians should give Kalininigrad to Poland before Kaliningrad citizens separate themselves.

[mikeaverko]

Not happening.

Moreover, when compared to the rest of Russia as well as Lithuania - Kaliningrad isn't so bad as is.

Besides, over the past six years, the Russian economy has grown above the world average whereasd the Polish economy has been stumbling.

As for conquering, the borders of many states are the result of conquest.

So much for anti-Russian double standards.

On Kaliningrad being made a part of Poland or Germany - Trans-Dniester, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Donbas and the northern half of Kazakhstan (South Siberia) have much better cases for being reunified with Russia.

[Edited by mikeaverko on 28th June 2005 at 09:45]

[Michal_PL]

Russian economy grows up because it was in recession for over decade so it just gets back the lost distance.it's because of oil high price.
besides highest economic growth-it's commmon for poor-Ukrainian GDP growth is now twice bigger than Russian.when you got one factory and build one another you got two factories and progress is 100%.when you got 8 factories and build another two the progress is only 25% but it's still 2 new factories vs only 1.

you know,I think i'll start the new topic about Russia and Poland.