Kaliningrad’s Present and Future
Vadim Smirnov is a special correspondent of Vremya Novostei newspaper to Kaliningrad.
In the first part of this decade the problems of Russia’s westernmost region occupied a major position on the agenda of Russian-European talks, but gradually the topic moved into the “long shot” category. An idea capable of laying the groundwork for the Kaliningrad Region’s long-term development and facilitating the maintenance of the Russian Federation’s territorial integrity has not been identified to date. In spite of an array of multifarious political statements and expert conclusions, no practical solutions to the Kaliningrad problem in the format of Russia-EU relations have been found.
A DUAL PERIPHERY
The Kaliningrad Region can be called a “war child.” Eastern Prussia with its capital Koenigsberg would not have had such a knotty history if Germany had not lost World War II. After getting hold of an ice-free Baltic seaport, the Soviet Union turned it into a foothold for the Soviet Navy and fishing industry, which was the backbone of the regional economy for many years. The agricultural sector was added somewhat later. After the breakup of the Soviet Union the region found itself in completely new and hitherto unseen geopolitical conditions. The region had been torn away from the “mainland” and remodeled into an exclave.
Such a possibility was considered at the highest political level as far back as 20 years ago, but it was regarded as unrealistic then. According to Yuri Semyonov, former chairman of the Kaliningrad Region Council who now holds the post of deputy speaker in the regional legislature, met with Mikhail Gorbachev and Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov in 1990 and proposed creating a 99-kilometer-long transport corridor from the region to Grodno in Belarus. The project included the construction of a major highway, railway and communication lines. Ryzhkov supported the proposal, but Gorbachev rejected it and told Semyonov not to panic. The idea of the corridor was never discussed again.
The new Russian reality put forth a different set of demands to the region’s economy than those it had faced previously. At first the region got the regimentations of a free economic zone and then of a special economic zone (SEZ). The region was gradually transformed from a garrison closed to outside visitors into a big “assembly workshop” where preference was given to import-substituting production facilities. They became the Kaliningrad Region’s calling card, but time showed that the model was far from ideal. Moreover, it appeared quite vulnerable to the cravings of the bureaucracy and the “mainland” lobbies. Russia’s westernmost region still suffers from the so-called “dual provincialism” – being in the periphery of both Russia and Europe, although it is confident that it is Russia’s most profoundly European territory.
Kaliningrad officials were not alone in contemplating the future of the exclave. This was also a headache for Moscow and the EU. To get an answer to this complicated question, one must understand what Russia, Kaliningrad and the EU are seeking and how their sometimes multidirectional interests could be matched.
A SPECIAL POSITION – IN THEORY
One might think that Russia’s interest towards the Kaliningrad exclave is all too obvious. It wants to preserve the region inside the country and implement an economic model here that would prevent the region from sliding back to the position of a “black hole” and that would be advanced in the ideal. It looks like the promotion of Russia’s interests at the inter-regional level in the EU (or in the format of Euroregions) is not on the agenda. Back in the summer of 2001, the Russian Security Council, chaired by President Vladimir Putin, reviewed the situation in the Kaliningrad Region and placed the main emphasis on the economy. Political versions of untangling the problem were discussed then as well (the appointment of a special plenipotentiary representative for the region instead of a governor or creating an eighth federal district specially for Kaliningrad), but all of them were dismissed.
Eventually half-measures were chosen. In April 2001, the position of a deputy Russian presidential envoy to the northwest of Russia in charge of the Kaliningrad Region was established, and a decision was made to rely on the economy. The regional authorities were advised to work out a model of interaction between Russia and Europe. It was admitted that the free economic zone was not bringing strategic benefits, but only short-term economic effects, while leaving the task of constructing a new economy unresolved. It was planned that a special session of the Security Council would work out The Guidelines of the Federal Policy towards the Kaliningrad Region. However, no document of this kind has been produced so far.
Instead, the exclave has been offered a series of surrogate slogan names like a “pilot region” or a “transport hub.” They only state the presence of a problem and do not offer any political solutions. The special economic zone and The Federal Task Program for the Development of the Kaliningrad Region (unlike other special federal programs targeting one region or another, this one’s budgetary funding was slashed due to the financial crisis, but was not suspended altogether) make it possible only – figuratively speaking – to “repair the coaches while the train is moving.” The Kaliningrad Region’s special status is acknowledged in theory only, and the absence of a fundamental program document does not give the authorities an opportunity to raise its development to a new level. Possibly, the genuine reason for this is that Moscow fears that some regions (for instance, constituent regions located along the border and some republics) may stage a “parade of sovereignties” once the special status of the Kaliningrad exclave is confirmed by a high-level document (for example, by a federal or constitutional law). Russia has laws On the Special Economic Zone in the Kaliningrad Region and The Federal Task Program for the Development of the Kaliningrad Region, but the exclave does not receive the support (financial or institutional) from the federal center that it could count on. Various regulatory acts actually cross out the special conditions of economic activity inherent in SEZ status, and this has more than once aggravated the situation in the region since the middle of the 1990s.
The Kaliningrad problem was topical at the federal level early in this decade when the EU was getting ready to absorb Lithuania and Poland in the course of another phase of its “enlargement” (these countries envelope the exclave that does not have a land border with the rest of Russia). The visa-free travel to Poland and Lithuania that the residents of the region had enjoyed previously was no longer possible after visa requirements were introduced. A regulation for simplified visa formalities concerning free and multiple-entry visas was introduced on several occasions, but eventually it was shelved after both neighboring countries joined the EU’s Schengen Agreement. Initially, the post of Russian presidential envoy to Kaliningrad was held by Dmitry Rogozin (currently Russia’s Ambassador to NATO), but later this function went over to presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who chaired an interdepartmental work group for the development of the Kaliningrad Region that reported to the Kremlin. The Kaliningrad problem was left hanging in midair when Yastrzhembsky left government. It has been called for only on certain occasions, like when the idea was voiced of deploying Iskander missiles in the exclave as a response to the U.S. third missile deployment area in Eastern Europe.
WHAT DOES KALININGRAD WANT?
The lack of a solid foundation that would determine the region’s status makes the legislative regulation of life in the exclave defective. Since guidelines for the federal policy towards the Kaliningrad Region never appeared, they could be substituted with a federal constitutional law on the Kaliningrad Region’s special status. Some local experts recommend that the foundation be laid by a special Russian-EU agreement on the Kaliningrad problem. However, this option seems to be unlikely, since the two parties are still at odds over a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (the sixth round of talks on it was held at the beginning of October in Brussels). In the meantime, a federal constitutional law (even though its adoption is possible only if political will is shown at the very top) could play the role of an “umbrella” for both the federal law On the Special Economic Zone in the Kaliningrad Region and The Federal Task Program for the Development of the Kaliningrad Region, protecting them from attacks by all kinds of lobbyists.
It has happened many times that some novelty or another conceived at the federal level caused big headaches for the Kaliningrad exclave. One such instance over the past year was the internal reform of the customs agencies. Or, take the new technical regulations for firefighting precautions that took effect in May 2009. This document actually paralyzed the operations of Kaliningrad furniture companies, as trucks carrying their products got stuck on the border, bringing the manufacturers to the brink of shutting down (note that the regional furniture-making industry, which accounts for 8 percent of all furniture made in Russia, plays a significant role in the exclave’s economy). As for the solution to the problem of firefighting precautions, it had to be settled at “fire sale” speed: the situation demanded the efforts of the region’s top officials who proved to the federal center that the technical regulations needed to be reconsidered as they did not take account of Kaliningrad’s special conditions. It seems that the regional authorities have the permanent job of proving the region’s specificity.
Regional experts see a way out of the situation in changing the region’s status. Some of them promulgate ideas outside the juridical field of the Russian Federation (for instance, one local political party, now banned, wanted to declare the region a fourth Baltic republic). Others demand that the exclave be granted the status of an overseas territory similar to the French island of Reunion or the British Channel Islands. Still others are mulling over a greater presence of the federal authorities in the region (for instance, giving the regional governor the status of a Russian deputy prime minister and introducing an annual compensation of around 10 billion rubles for the exclave’s isolated existence).
Kaliningrad Regional Governor Georgy Boos said in the fall of 2008 that he would ask Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to institute a position in the presidential staff of an official with the special duty of overseeing Kaliningrad affairs. He believed this might help eliminate the bureaucratic conflict of interests. A year has elapsed since then, but the absence of public statements on the issue suggests that no decisions have been made.
Generally speaking, Kaliningrad pinned big hopes on Georgy Boos. When he assumed the governorship of the territory in the fall of 2005 after resigning from his position as Vice Speaker of the State Duma, many thought that a politician from the top federal level would have enough power to end the Kaliningrad stalemate. The past four years have shown that there is no movement in the institutional sphere, although the region has begun to get a little more finance from the center for large-scale projects – those which are often not welcomed by local residents. But the decision on the choice of the ideology for the exclave’s development has been postponed – indefinitely it seems (this is not surprising since the final word always rests with Moscow whatever the strength of the regional resource).
Instead, the Kaliningrad Region has been offered an array of mega-projects which are expected to improve the economic situation there in the next few decades – if Russian-EU relations remain at the current level or even if they worsen. The list of projects includes: the construction of a nuclear power plant that would also export energy, a gambling zone, an amber exchange, a cargo air junction, an oil refinery, etc. The projects are based on the idea of turning the region’s half-illicit economy into an economy of steeply rising financial gain (even though pegged to a large-scale, but solitary, project) through the optimization of internal resources and reliance on major foreign investors. Alas, all the ideas, which their initiators viewed as would-be locomotives for the local economy, are far from being implemented, while some of them have proven shallow. Meanwhile, life in the exclave is becoming increasingly more expensive. The cost of energy, housing, public utility services and foodstuffs, as well as inflation are among Russia’s highest. The slogans suggesting that living standards in the Kaliningrad Region must be comparable with those in Lithuania and Poland remain only words.
A CLEAR MESSAGE IS BEING SENT
One might get the impression that the EU has gradually withdrawn from discussions about the exclave’s future (although no other Russian region depends so heavily on what their neighbors do, for example, in the sphere of travel visas or transit cargo). In the meantime, the EU and Russia issued a joint statement in November 2002 where the EU pledged to render technical and financial assistance to Russia’s efforts to support the exclave region’s social and economic development. The commitment embraced, among other things, improvements in border crossing procedures and border infrastructures. Ideas budded then of creating a European fund for Kaliningrad’s development with an annual budget of 40 million euros, but they were abandoned. Likewise, no efforts have been taken to harmonize regional and European legislation, although such attempts were made previously. A proposal to launch a visa-free high-speed rail link between Kaliningrad and Moscow has sunk into oblivion. A special subcommittee for the region’s development, which European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso proposed setting up in the format of the Russia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement at one of the Russia-EU summits, is not functioning at the level that was meant.
As a result, the EU’s presence in the region is confined to administrating joint projects, like the construction of sewage treatment facilities in the town of Gusev, and cultural events like movie festivals. Thus it seems that a clear message is being sent: the Kaliningrad exclave is Russia’s problem and not the EU’s. However, the EU is not letting the westernmost Russian region get out of the zone of its attention. For instance, Lithuania has taken on the self-assigned duty of a solicitor for Kaliningrad, something that Lithuanian diplomats have stated more than once. It is also true, though, that the soliciting does not go beyond rhetoric, as the problems of easing visa requirements and revising tariffs for transit cargo are far from being resolved.
AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE
As a replacement for all of this, Kaliningrad residents are again offered surrogates, like the mechanism of the so-called limited cross-border travel, which means admitting the people living within a zone of 30 to 50 kilometers along the state border into a zone of the same depth in the neighboring country. All the appeals on the part of the Russian Foreign Ministry to resolve local visa problems more radically (for instance, to issue national Lithuanian visas to all Kaliningrad residents, as this does not run counter to Schengen legislation) have not found much support. The same concerns the proposals of the Kaliningrad regional Duma to introduce visa-free travel to the exclave for EU citizens on a reciprocal basis.
The latter idea, however, has problems concerning its juridical interpretation. On the one hand, the Russian Constitution provides equal rights to all Russian citizens and makes all the constituent territories equal as well, while the introduction of simplified travel regulations for Kaliningrad residents only may put them at an advantage compared to other Russians. On the other hand, the exclave’s residents have for years been living in a more difficult situation than other Russians. Their right to free travel has been infringed on (Russian officials pointed this out to the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, who visited the region in the fall of 2008). No Russian citizen living in the “mainland” has to cross the territory of a foreign country (Lithuania, a member of the EU), obtain a passport for foreign travel, get a travel visa or a “simplified travel document’ (the issuance of which can be denied by the way) when making a trip from his or her place of residence to Moscow. Moreover, in the past Moscow was “probed” for the possible introduction of fees for the “simplified travel documents” and for compounding their issuance with requirements that could reduce the entire transit mechanism to naught.
Incidentally, exceptions for the Kaliningrad Region in federal legislation were already made before (for example, local residents were exempt from fees for getting passports) and that is why there seems to be no reasons that would prevent the government from doing the same thing again. But unless we get a clear concept of the region’s development we cannot get a clear answer to the question of why we should open the border and put Kaliningrad at risk of turning into a transit base for illegal migrants. The introduction of a limited cross-border travel zone will hardly make us consider the Kaliningrad visa problem settled de facto, although it will provide grounds for claiming that the issue is resolved de jure, thus setting the stage for complications in the future. Also, it will make the lives of Polish and Lithuanian shuttle traders much easier.
THE NEW PRUSSIANS
Kaliningrad’s offbeat challenges, which spread beyond the region’s boundaries (and, incidentally, have not been identified or estimated in full measure), testify to the importance of a radically different approach to the situation. The exclave’s problems are neither technical (as they are not confined to travel visas or transit via EU territory), or economic (since they are bigger than just questions of transit fees or the construction of the Baltic nuclear power plant), or exclusively political. It also has a socio-cultural meta-dimension.
The Kaliningrad Region was created by people who resettled from different parts of the former Soviet Union and its population is not autochthonous. Obviously, the people who moved there more than half a century ago did not accept the Prussian-German legacy – the half-destroyed Koenigsberg Castle was blown up and erased from the face of the earth in the mid-1960s, while numerous architectural monuments and churches still lie in ruins. The restoration of many of them has just begun, as the Kaliningrad Region was opened to foreign tourists in the early 1990s, which produced a surge of nostalgic tours from Germany.
This fact adds a special “flavor” to the Kaliningrad problem. The past few years have revealed a growing tendency among the locals who regard themselves to be intellectuals – especially among creative professionals – to demonstrate their solid knowledge of the region’s pre-Soviet history as a matter of courtesy. There are also people who use historical German geographic names in everyday life (and they cannot be called solitary militant Germanophiles). Does this mean that we are witnessing a qualitative break of the exclave’s population from the rest of Russia? Or will Kaliningrad residents produce a symbiotic Russo-European culture and create new genius loci instead of the German one?
One way or another, it is clear today that immersion in the historical and cultural heritage of one’s predecessors unites contemporary residents of the region as much as the aversion against all things German united their fathers and grandfathers. This transformation of local consciousness has not passed unnoticed by the former masters of the territory. Guido Herz, Germany’s Consul General to Kaliningrad, said shortly before accepting a new appointment that he fully realized that people had come there from all parts of the former Soviet Union and they did not have a common denominator other than the German past of that territory. Hence their willingness to put their place of residence into an unusual and more interesting light, as if it were something special, is easy to understand, the diplomat said.
COMMITTED ATTENTION
In this context, the presence of the Russian federal center through numerous official institutions in the Kaliningrad exclave and, on top of that, its committed and efficient attention to the region’s problems is of critical significance. In the first post-Soviet years, the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet served as tangible proof of the interconnections between the region and “mainland” Russia, but now this role is performed to a much greater degree by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Intensive development and consolidation of the Orthodox Christian faith in the Kaliningrad Region (which did not have any Orthodox churches before the mid-1980s, a fact that compelled the residents needing spiritual guidance to make trips to neighboring Lithuania) and the long personal relationships of some hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate (Patriarch Kirill, in the first place) with the territory creates the sensation that there is a real Russian presence in that remote place. Proof of the special significance that the Russian presence has for the region could be seen in the painful reaction from the local authorities a few years ago to the demand of supervisory agencies that Russia’s national emblem be removed from the Mayor’s Office in Kaliningrad and then from the building of the Baltic Fleet’s Staff. It looks like the Russian Church has a much greater awareness of the uniqueness of Kaliningrad challenges than secular top-level agencies. One of the testimonies to this can be found in Patriarch Kirill’s decision to keep the diocese of Kaliningrad under his personal governance. Along with this, one should not overlook the competition posed by the Roman Catholic Church (especially in what concerns claims remaining from the pre-Soviet era to church property). This certainly makes the religious factor more acute.
Still, it is the secular authorities that will have to decide on the ideology for developing the Kaliningrad Region. They will have to devise it in the absence of a strategic vision of mutual relations on the part of both Russia and the EU. This is not a simple thing to do, especially as they are not making any headway in relations. There have been numerous attempts over the past twenty years, but all of them have ended up in half-measures. Apparently, the past approaches aimed at “mending the holes” and “whipping at others’ tails” (and this is what happened after Lithuania and Poland’s accession to the Schengen zone) are not working and that is why we must try to make a forecast for the situation and see its prospects.
The Kaliningrad exclave’s problems are becoming more complicated and there is a risk that they may grow from a small bundle of contradictions into a big tangle of interstate controversies.
