Integrating Eastern Europe into the World Economy: The Relations between the EU and Russia

The relations between the EU and Russia are presently marked by a series of significant factors which must not be neglected by either political practice or analytical examination. Let me therefore begin with a necessarily brief outline of these factors, of which the following four are especially important (Hohmann and Meier, 1997): the extent to which Russia has been integrated into foreign and security political structures of the Euro-Atlantic region;the differing degree of intensity in the rapprochement between EU and East European transformation countries;Russia’s historic, national and economic particularities that do not conform to “European normalcy” despite the fact that Russia belongs to Europe and finallythe level of economic consolidation and systemic transformation in Russia.