Wider Europe

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 issues: fresh military aid for Moldova and a conversation with the EU's Kaja Kallas.

Embed share

Wider Europe Briefing: Moldova's Army Gets A Boost From The EU

by RFE/RL

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

---

No media source currently available

0:00 0:11:05 0:00

Direct link

• 128 kbps | MP3
• 64 kbps | MP3

Pop-out player

Briefing #1: EU Ramps Up Military Aid For Moldova

What You Need To Know: On April 9, European Union ambassadors will green-light the bloc's biggest-ever lethal military aid package to Moldova, worth 20 million euros.

The move is significant as the country is constitutionally neutral and the EU has previously only provided aid that was considered "nonlethal" such as military vehicles, air surveillance, and equipment boosting cybersecurity.

This changed last year, however, when Brussels provided 9 million euros for air-defense systems' short-range interceptors.

Now, the EU is more than doubling that in a reflection of what EU diplomats told me was the vulnerable situation Moldova is under with an increasingly belligerent and active Russia putting pressure on countries wanting to move closer to the West.

According to the proposal, seen by RFE/RL, the money will cover "eight short-range air-defense systems consisting of approximately eight launchers and approximately 24 missiles." The document notes that the implementation of this will be carried out by the Estonian Center for Defense Investments, which supplied Chisinau with equipment last year as well.

Deep Background: The proposal notes that "the proposed assistance measure will improve the performance and operational effectiveness of the Moldovan Armed Forces by replacing outdated Soviet-era equipment and/or establishing new capabilities."

Moldova ambitiously aims to join the EU this decade, and accession talks are formally set to start in the coming months. The paper notes that the measures are also aimed at bringing Chisinau closer into the fold, adding that the actions are undertaken "with a view to strengthening the Republic of Moldova's capacities to participate in [EU] military common security and defense policy missions and operations, accelerating compliance with Union standards and interoperability."

SEE ALSO:

Wider Europe Briefing: Could Moldova Get Transdniester Back?

The approval of these measures comes only a week after the same EU ambassadors gave a thumbs up to another package of financial assistance meant to supplement this one.

The other package, worth 40 million euros, is what the bloc calls nonlethal military aid. Of that sum, half will pay for an estimated 33 high-mobility tactical vehicles to replace old Soviet-type armored vehicles. The other 20 million euros is for what is called a short-range air-defense tactical integration system, essentially allowing the launchers and missiles provided in the "lethal" package to function smoothly.

Drilling Down

• The 60 million euros combined is the largest yearly amount heading to the small Eastern European republic since Brussels started this type of support in 2021.

• The total figure since then will now reach 197 million euros, all coming under the European Peace Facility (EPF), an off-EU budget facility that has also allowed the EU as an entity to provide billions of euros in lethal assistance to Ukraine since the Russian full-scale invasion of the country over three years ago.

• Another interesting aspect of the proposal is that there is a hint that the United States, under the new Trump administration,, might step away from playing an active role in Moldova's defense sector. The paper notes, "In the past, the United States have been a major contributor in the defense sphere in Moldova, both regarding training and equipment support. Decisions by the new US administration on support to be provided in the future are pending."

SEE ALSO:

Could The EU Become A Military Superpower?

• It does add, however, that "according to preliminary feedback by the Moldovan Ministry of Defense, the potential downsizing of US training support would not affect equipment provided under [EPF] assistance measures."

• What's interesting is that approval of the Moldova EPF was plain-sailing, with discussion among EU working groups on the issue proceeding without major hiccups.

• This is in sharp contrast to the EPF requests for Ukraine that Hungary has blocked for nearly two years, as well as a recent new proposal for Armenia with which Budapest also took issue. Hungary delayed the first-ever EPF funding for Yerevan, worth 11 million euros, for several months last year before approving it and is now repeating the stalling tactic.

• The new package, seen by RFE/RL, contains 20 million euros earmarked primarily for medical equipment for the Armenian armed forces. Like last year, EU diplomats are telling me Budapest is holding off approval by arguing that Azerbaijan, which enjoys close relations with the Fidesz-led Hungarian government, should be offered something similar.

Briefing #2: The Kallas Conversation

What You Need To Know: It's fair to say Kaja Kallas has had a tough start as the EU foreign policy chief. Four months into the job and the club's diplomats are already complaining to the media about how the Estonian is handling the bloc's top diplomatic job.

Now, Brussels is famous for bureaucrats privately berating high-ranking colleagues and officials. It's the veritable fuel that at least keeps the EU media circles spinning, and I've heard plenty of it myself in conversation with my sources -- just as I encountered similar things about her predecessors.

Some of the criticisms of Kallas are warranted, while others are not.

Not securing a bilateral agreement with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio when going to the United States in March was a blow and demonstrated that Brussels hadn't done enough diplomatic footwork ahead of the trip.

SEE ALSO:

EU Pledges To Continue Arming Ukraine Amid Cease-Fire Talks

Saying the EU wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia instead of the agreed-upon EU line of "supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes" was to northern and eastern member states a sign of ambition to reshape the narrative.

To others, however, it stoked fears that Kallas only cares about the bloc's eastern neighborhood and that she's obsessed with Russia -- a charge one often hears in Brussels against any Baltic politician.

In truth, she has spent much more time in the south than in the east, traveling several times to the bloc's southern rim, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Palestine. Her biggest diplomatic win so far has arguably been securing the EU's Syria sanctions rollback despite some initial howls from EU capitals.

Deep Background: Another charge has been her failure to get some of her initiatives over the line, but this largely has to do with some EU capitals working against her.

Take the push to get fresh money for Ukraine if the United States suddenly halts funding. Her proposal was largely based on EU member states chipping in based on their economic size, so via gross national income (GNI). Both Paris and Rome shot this down, mainly because it would mean they would have to pay up more than they have so far when it comes to Ukraine military aid.

Then there's Kallas's push to sanction the Georgian political leadership even though both Hungary and Slovakia had indicated in lower diplomatic circles in Brussels that this was unacceptable for them, denying her the needed consensus.

SEE ALSO:

Fresh Ukraine Talks To Highlight Divisions Between US And Europe

One of the more plausible explanations I got for this is that she is the first prime minister to become EU foreign policy chief, while the others have all been foreign ministers and have had some experience of how the EU foreign affairs council works.

They work differently from EU summits, where heads of government assemble in Brussels and where Kallas has cut her teeth. At the latter, there tend to be deals, negotiations and negotiations to be had -- often dragging on for hours, even days. At ministerials, things tend to be structured, carefully choreographed and most items agreed upon beforehand.

Drilling Down

• What's next for Kallas? In a wide-ranging interview with RFE/RL last week on the sidelines of the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg, she offered me some hints about a number of issues.

• Her views on the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, which she has inherited from her predecessors, was perhaps what I found the most interesting. The dialogue, initiated in 2011, is an attempt to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo but it last happened at the leader level nearly two years ago.

• "We have to keep the end goal in mind, the normalization of their relationship, so that they could both proceed in their European path. So maybe it's the dialogue, or maybe it is another tool. I'm willing to look into it," she told me, hinting that a new format for the talks may be under way.

• What that format can be is anyone's guess at the moment, but something tells me her focus on the Western Balkans will grow in the coming months with the aim of speeding up the region's EU integration. She is currently on a trip to Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro and will be in Serbia in May. Developments here are worth watching.

• What also became clear is her limits on doing something new in Georgia: "What we have done is to help the NGOs and civil society, so the funds that we had for the government, we have redirected them to the civil society to help them to really go on the European path."

• Yet, she admitted that no EU restrictive measures are on the table going forward: "You know, we have to have the agreement by 27 countries. And that is a problem here."

SEE ALSO:

Mr. Dmitriev Goes To Washington: What We Know About The Kremlin's Envoy And His DC Meetings

• Dealing with Hungary will be a challenge. In EU foreign policy, things are decided via unanimity, meaning that Budapest be a headache for the foreseeable future. She did, however, manage to get the bloc's Russia sanctions extended recently despite loud Hungarian protests.

• But it is not only on sanctions policy. Take Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Hungary last week. He's been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Budapest should have tried to arrest him. Instead, he was welcomed with open arms and the country announced its intention to leave the court.

• When I asked Kallas if she fears something similar will happen if the Russian President Vladimir Putin, another ICC-indictee, comes to EU territory, her answer was worryingly deflective: "The problem is that the EU is not the member of the convention, it's the member states. If a person comes to their territory, they also have to implement the ICC decisions."

• Therein lies very much her problem: She is beholden to the whims of all EU member states, with Hungary the most problematic at the moment. Being a former EU prime minister, she understands that. But it will frustrate her at every turn she makes.

Looking Ahead

The NATO HQ in Brussels will host two meetings this week that aren't strictly related to the military alliance.

On April 10, defense ministers of the "coalition of the willing" -- a gathering of largely European nations led by Britain and France -- are assembling to continue work on "a reassurance force" for Ukraine after a potential permanent cease-fire has been agreed.

The day after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (known as the Ramstein group), chaired this time by Britain and Germany, will come together to look at more military contributions to Ukraine.

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

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition subscribe here.

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 am drilling down on two issues: When Russia could get sanctions relief and Marco Rubio's first NATO ministerial.

Briefing #1: EU Won't Lift Sanctions On Russia -- Yet

What You Need To Know: In recent weeks, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine have been sketching out cease-fire frameworks: one aimed at protecting energy infrastructure like power plants and transmission lines and another focused on reducing military activity in the Black Sea.

One of Moscow's big asks has been publicly communicated: sanctions relief. In a Kremlin statement issued after the Black Sea cease-fire agreement on March 25, Moscow declared it would only observe the deal if the West partially lifted sanctions imposed following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

This demand includes lifting restrictions on fertilizer exports and the insurance companies that cover them, as well as reconnecting several Russian banks to the SWIFT global payment system.

Several EU leaders have already dismissed Moscow's request, most notably during a March 27 meeting in Paris , where top officials from more than 30 countries gathered to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

When I spoke with numerous European diplomats, they all pointed out that the White House statement released the same day made no mention of sanctions relief.

As one EU ambassador put it to me, referring to the recent cease-fire talks in Riyadh: "No deal was made on this in Saudi Arabia, so therefore nothing to decide for us."

Deep Background: The Europeans have obviously not been present at the cease-fire talks, but they do have a rather large say on Russia sanctions.

SWIFT is a Belgian company, for starters, and the EU has "de-SWIFTed" 23 Russian banks so far, including big ones such as Sberbank and Bank Otkritie.

They are also aware that Russia's trade relations with Europe run deeper than they do with the United States.

Even before the full-scale invasion, US exports to Russia amounted to less than 0.5 percent of total American worldwide exports. For the EU, that figure was 6 percent, which is equivalent to 250 billion euros ($272 billion).

So, when wide-ranging EU sanctions were imposed, it hit Moscow harder. The EU's sanctions czar, David O'Sullivan, estimates that restrictive measures have deprived Russia of more than 450 billion euros ($490 billion) in revenue since early 2022.

So, are the Europeans considering even a partial easing of sanctions on Russia?

The answer I consistently hear is a simple "no" or "we will decline this."

Officials point to Russia's ongoing drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, as well as the conclusions of a recent EU gathering, which signaled a potential ramping up of measures rather than a relaxation of pressure. As the Main Results of the March 20 European Council meeting on Ukraine put it: "The European Union remains ready to step up pressure on Russia, including through further sanctions and by strengthening the enforcement of existing measures."

The European Commission has not yet invited EU member states for so-called sanctions confessionals to discuss a new sanctions package, which would be the 17th in three years, but they are looking into things like closing sanctions circumvention loopholes.

Drilling Down

• The conclusions of the European Council meeting on March 20 were approved by 26 out of 27 EU member states. The one not aligning? Hungary, which for a long time has been critical of EU sanctions .
• This is significant for one reason: lifting EU sectoral sanctions requires unanimity, and that simply doesn't exist right now. As noted above, many member states are calling for more sanctions, not fewer. But here's the catch: Every six months, in January and July, the entire sanctions package must be extended -- and that also requires unanimous approval.
• It is here where Hungary, and potentially others, might want to come in and start scaling down. In January, Budapest was threatening the entire rollover and only gave the green light after getting written assurances that Russian oil would continue to flow into Hungary.
• EU diplomats I've spoken to are already fearing what the July sanctions extension might look like and what concessions they may have to make to secure a rollover as a whole.
• The regular EU summit at the end of June will likely involve intense horse-trading on this, with Hungary eyeing more frozen EU funds for itself and several member states eager to launch EU accession talks with Kyiv by the summer -- a move Budapest has blocked so far.
• De-SWIFTing some banks and allowing Russian fertilizers into the bloc again are obviously low-hanging fruit in this regard. But this will, of course, depend on what the situation looks like on the ground in Ukraine at that time.
• One thing is clear, however: Despite immediate rejections from European diplomats, Moscow has planted a seed. As one European diplomat put it to me: "I believe it is a smart salami method the Russians have started here. Already into the cease-fire talks, they bring far-reaching demands that, in fact, belong more in a comprehensive peace deal discussion. It should be us this time who are 'transactional' and give this powerful tool away only for a fair price."
• So what could this fair price be? In a sense, European officials will look to Kyiv to provide the answer. But according to those I've spoken with, the contours could include limited sanctions relief in exchange for freezing the front lines, no recognition of occupied territories as Russian, and continued Western military deliveries to Ukraine, with the snapback option of sanctions if breaches occur. The question is whether Brussels and Kyiv can get Moscow to agree to such a deal and what the United States will think of it.

Briefing #2: Rubio Comes To Brussels

What You Need To Know: On April 3-4, NATO foreign ministers will gather in Brussels for their regular spring meeting.

Much like the defense ministerial in February, all eyes will be on the American representative. Then, it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; this time, it's Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

When Rubio was first slated for the role in the new Trump administration, most Europeans rejoiced. He was seen as an ardent "transatlanticist."

Now, there is a certain nervousness, according to NATO diplomats I have spoken to.

While some say, "He still gets us and the alliance," they wonder what influence he really has within the US government and what he will say when it comes to Ukraine, Russia, and China.

Two things, however, are apparent.

Just like Hegseth, Rubio will hammer home the message that European allies need to step up on defense spending and burden sharing.

And, just like in February, the allies will hope that the United States reconfirms its commitment to NATO and its mutual defense clause, Article 5.

Since the only other NATO gatherings before the alliance's June summit are an informal foreign ministers' meeting in Turkey in mid-May and a defense ministers' session in early June, this week's meeting serves very much as a dress rehearsal for the summit in The Hague on June 24-26.

The goal for that meeting is clear: Keep the alliance together by ramping up defense spending considerably.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is pushing for every ally to commit to spending at least 3.7 percent of gross domestic product on defense as quickly as possible and with regular progress reports.

This push is aimed at placating US President Donald Trump at the summit, but some European allies will be reluctant to commit too much on defense too soon given they are struggling with low growth and ballooning budget deficits.

Deep Background: Perhaps the one thing to look out for during the ministerial is the session devoted to NATO-EU relations, with the latter being represented by the European bloc's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.

Rubio snubbed Kallas when she traveled to the United States earlier this year, and all EU diplomats I have spoken to admit that Washington doesn't see the EU as a serious interlocutor.

There is also plenty of tension, not least when it comes to the European Commission's latest defense spending proposal: a potential 150 billion euro ($163 billion) loan for EU member states to buy arms, though not from non-European countries. The United States is especially wary of any moves that would lock it out of a European defense-spending splurge.

But the biggest irritant, of course, is the fraying relationship on trade.

Just one day before the NATO meeting, the United States is set to impose a 25 percent tariff on all vehicle imports, a move that will hit countries like Germany especially hard. This follows existing US duties on European steel and aluminum, which Brussels is planning to counter with retaliatory measures on April 13.

Drilling Down

• Another guest at the ministerial is Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha. An update on the situation on the battlefield is expected but, again, it will be Rubio who is in the spotlight. Will the United States increase pressure on Russia in case the cease-fire deals concerning infrastructure and Black Sea traffic aren't holding?
• While Ukraine's membership in the alliance is off the table for now, most European allies are keen to at least get assurances that US weapons will continue to go to Ukraine and that NATO's training mission for Ukrainian soldiers, NSATU, continues to operate. So far, everything is still working. There also haven't been any changes when it comes to US troop posture on NATO's eastern flank.
• What has changed, however, is that the United States is no longer chairing the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, known as the Ramstein group, which coordinates military support for Kyiv. The United Kingdom already chaired the last meeting of the group in February, and the next one tentatively scheduled for April 11 could be co-chaired by the UK and France.
• Expect London and Paris to also continue working, at least on the sidelines of the ministerial, on a potential reassurance force in Ukraine should a permanent cease-fire take hold. However, details such as troop numbers, participating countries, and the exact mandate will have to remain sketchy for now.
• What's become increasingly apparent is that work on a new NATO strategy for Russia has stalled. The strategy -- defining how the alliance should engage with Moscow going forward -- was supposed to be endorsed at the Hague summit. But Washington has indicated that it wants to avoid introducing potential "irritants" on the path to a final peace deal, and such a strategy document could be exactly that.
• Finally, the foreign ministers of NATO's four Asia-Pacific partners -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea -- will also be participating in a session at the explicit request of the United States. While the US administration sees Beijing as a rival, its public criticism of China has so far been relatively muted. In this session, ministers will be keen to hear Rubio's take on how to approach a range of China-related issues.

Looking Ahead

Look out for the first ever EU-Central Asia leaders' summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on April 4. European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to discuss issues that include energy cooperation, Russian sanctions circumvention, and expanding trade opportunities.

That's all for this week! Thank you all for your wonderful feedback on last week's issue .

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

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition subscribe here .