A Euro-BRICS joint statement on the Ukrainian crisis : Three strategic proposals

[Republished from LEAP/E2020 site.]

We [1], the undersigned members of civil society in Europe and the BRICS (academic professors and researchers, think-tank leaders, journalists, business representatives, civil society representatives), declare our common worry about the trends currently at play resulting from the crisis in Ukraine. These trends are affecting the international community, threatening the sovereignty of Ukraine and the independence of Europe mainly, triggering an unwelcome polarisation of the international system and impacting an always fragile geopolitical balance.

We strongly disagree with the disruption of Euro-Russian relations and its negative consequences on Euro-BRICS future-bearer relations, with the deployment of troops on both sides of the Euro-Russian border and in particular of foreign US military troops on Europe’s territory, with the growing tensions provoked by the non-concerted free-trade policies of Europe and Russia on common border countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, etc…

We also want to state that the humanitarian emergency situation in Ukraine and crimes and abuses committed against the civil populations during the Ukrainian crisis should be promptly dealt with and investigated.

We consider that the Ukrainian crisis calls for the set-up of a diplomatic arena to discuss Europe’s and Russia’s rights to organize their common markets and how to make these markets coexist peacefully. We estimate that the Euro-BRICS cooperation framework is likely to provide the proper mediation required to reach a positive result.

We wish to reaffirm our analysis [2] that Europe presents assets to contribute positively to the peaceful emergence of a multipolar world. Indeed the Ukrainian crisis has showed that, while an independent and open Europe provides grounds for the emergence of a multipolar world, a one-sided Europe creates the conditions for a world polarized between a Western bloc and the new global powers.

We want to remind that a historical transition from a unipolar world with the US as the sole superpower towards a multipolar world is underway that must be accompanied instead of contained. The whole world, including Europe and the United States, will gain from a commonly-conducted reorganisation of global governance acknowledging multipolarity. To this purpose, we need global leaders with a high sense of historical responsibility and collective interest.

It is this sense historical responsibility and collective interest that we call onto through this declaration.

** ACKNOWLEDGING SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES AS A PREREQUISITE – We have agreed that responsibilities over the crisis in Ukraine must be shared among Europe and Russia. On this basis of recognition of each player’s responsibilities only can peace be rebuilt in Ukraine and Euro-Russian relations revived.

** RESUMING EURO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS TO CREATE THE CONDITIONS FOR A UKRAINIAN-LED CRISIS RESOLUTION – It belongs to the Ukrainians to get organized and rebuild peace in Ukraine. However there is no way tensions between the pro-Russian and pro-European Ukrainians will deescalate if tensions between Russia and Europe do not deescalate first. Therefore, for the sake of peace in Ukraine, we require from European and Russian leaders to restart a constructive dialogue and we wish to encourage the media to provide a more objective information and correct the mis-information which would lead to more conflict in the future.

** A EURO-BRICS BACK-UP OF THE CRISIS RESOLUTION EFFORT – As a contribution to encourage and mediate the Euro-Russian effort to relaunch a solution-oriented dialogue, we request from Euro-BRICS leaders [3] that they soon [4] convene the first “Euro-BRICS summit for Ukraine” in an effort to establish causes, identify solutions and contribute to put in place the political and diplomatic conditions for a sovereign resolution of the Ukrainian crisis and for the prevention of similar crises with other Euro-Russian border states in the future.

 Undersigned members of civil society in Europe and the BRICS (academic professors and researchers, think-tank leaders, journalists, business representatives) by alphabetical order

. Adriana Abdenur – Professor, Institute of International Relations, PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

. Jean-Paul Baquiast – Honorary State comptroller / Publisher of www.europe-solidaire.eu, Paris, France

. Marie-Hélène Caillol – President LEAP/E2020 (Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique), Paris, France

. Jayanthi Chandrasekharan – Assistant Professor, Department of French, Loyola College, Chennai, India

. Jose-Maria Compagni-Morales – President FEFAP (Fundación para la Educación y Formación en Anticipación Política), Associate Professor IE Business School, Sevilla, Spain

. Taco Dankers – Entrepreneur, software engineer, Dankers & Frank, Consulting and Software Engineering, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

. Baudouin De Sonis – Executive manager, e-Forum & EU-China-Forum / Associate director IERI (Institut Européen des Relations Internationales), Brussels, Belgium

. Anna Gots – Financial Director, AEGEE-Europe / European Students’ Forum, Belgium

. Harald Greib – President IRPA (Internationaler Rat fur Politische Antizipation), Hamburg, Germany

. Christel Hahn – General coordinator AAFB, Germany

. Michael Kahn - Professor Extraordinaire, Stellenbosch University, South Africa / Director, Research and Innovation Associates, Cape Town, South Africa

. Caroline Lubbers – Project manager Euro-BRICS, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

. Bruno Paul - Doctor in Sciences, Founder of conscience-sociale.org, Paris, France 

. Zhongqi Pan – Professor at Center for BRICS studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

. Sylvain Perifel – Coordinator GEAB, Leap2020, Paris, France

. Marianne Ranke-Cormier – President Newropeans, Paris, France

. Yi Shen - Associate Professor at Center for BRICS studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

. Suyuan Sun – Research Associate at Center for BRICS studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

. Veronique Swinkels - Director general, BBK/Door Vriendschap Sterker, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

. Alexander Zhebit – Professor of International relations, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

. Jiejin Zhu - Associate Professor at Center for BRICS studies, Fudan University, Shanghai,

________________

---

[1] This common statement results from a historical video-conference, organised on May 27^th by LEAP in partnership with FEFAP and in collaboration with the Fudan University, Shanghai, which gathered 28 representatives from Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, Spain, Russia and Ukraine, on the following theme: “The impact of the Ukrainian crisis on Euro-BRICS, Euro-U.S. and BRICS’ relations – A Euro-BRICS exchange of views on the Ukrainian crisis with a view to possible solutions”. The convergence of views was striking and led the group to draft this joint statement.

[2] LEAP and MGIMO launched the Euro-BRICS process in 2009 on this intuition stated here: Why Euro-BRICS? or here: Concept of the 4^th seminar

[3] At least Mr Hollande, Ms Merkel, Mr Modi, Mr Putin, Ms Rousseff, Mr Xi, Mr Zuma.

[4] Ideally as a side event of the upcoming BRICS Summit in Brazil mid-July; at the latest, early 2015.