MEMBER STATES: LOSS OF ANALYTICAL CAPACITY
56.
Witnesses told us that Member States had lost analytical capacity on Russia. This, we judge, contributed to a concomitant decline in their ability to maintain oversight of the direction of the EU-Russia relationship and, in particular, to monitor the political implications of the Commission's trade and technical programmes.
57. Mr Klaus recalled that there had been a historic asymmetry, whereby former communist countries "knew the West much more than you knew the East", and that this asymmetry remained.[74] His Excellency Dr Revaz Gachechiladze, Georgian Ambassador to the UK, also noted that there was "not a good understanding of Russia in the West".[75] Turning to recent events, Mr Lukyanov recalled that on the day of the Crimean referendum, when the question had already been announced, he continued to receive disbelieving calls from European diplomats saying: "
'It cannot happen. It is just a bluff'." He warned us that with "this level of analysis, I am afraid that more surprises are to come, and not only from Russia."[76] Dr Casier agreed that there was a "huge need for more knowledge about the local situation both in Russia and in the Eastern Partnership countries." This was where "we have to build much stronger analytical capacity."[77] Dr Casier pointed out that President Yanukovych's decision not to sign the Association Agreement (AA) "had been the subject of speculation in the Ukrainian press long before he announced his decision, but took the EU by total surprise."[78]
58. Mr Josef Janning, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that while there remained experienced diplomats in national capitals, there had been a shrinking of the "strategic space" within ministries of foreign affairs, in which to "go through the options and do analysis".[79]
59. The Rt Hon David Lidington MP agreed that there was a gap in knowledge and analysis, and judged this to be a function of time and of "various assumptions" made about Russia during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years. These meant that, by the beginning of 2014, "there were very few officials in any government department or agency, here or elsewhere, who had personal professional experience of working with the old Soviet Union before it collapsed."[80] During our informal discussions we were told that a similar situation prevailed in other Member States as well.
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