Unlikely alliance built on opposition to Iraq war now raises questions - International Herald Tribune

Almost two years after Russia, Germany and France forged an unlikely alliance around their opposition to the war in Iraq, the countries' leaders are preparing for their second three-way summit meeting next week, even though the issue that drew them together no longer drives their agenda.

As with their first meeting — when President Vladimir Putin of Russia invited his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany in April last year to St. Petersburg — the Russian head of state is playing host to the talks Monday and Tuesday, this time at his summer residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

But unlike the last meeting, this one lacks a clear focus, and some political experts wonder about its usefulness. Others have expressed outright cynicism about the leaders' motives.

Officials in Moscow, Berlin and Paris say the alliance has moved past the common front against the American-led invasion of Iraq, which they refused to legitimize with a United Nations resolution in early 2003. Russia and France are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, while Germany stood by them as a temporary member of the 15-member body.

"The relationship emerged out of a special situation, but the meeting next week shows that this relationship has gone beyond Iraq," said a German official close to the chancellor.

The talks in Sochi, officials say, will center on Russia's strategic partnership with the European Union in fields as diverse as education, energy supply and border restrictions.

While Putin is expected to press hard for visa-free travel into the European Union, German and French officials signaled Friday that in their opinion Russia was not yet ready.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly, the three leaders are likely to exchange views on tactics on a wide variety of international issues, including violence in Iraq and the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

While Germany may seek support for its effort to become a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has said it wants to push for reform of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It could also delay its plans to join the World Trade Organization.

But according to experts like Katinka Barysch of the London-based Center for European Reform, none of those issues warrant a three-way summit.

"There is no real glue holding the three together – past opposition to a war that has long been over just isn't enough," she said.

At a time when Russia's democratic structures are perceived to be weakening, the five-year-old war in Chechnya continues to rage and Moscow is supporting rebel governments in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it may have been wiser for Germany and France to avoid talks with Russia and instead operate from a European Union platform, analysts say.

In addition, Western European efforts to rub shoulders with Russia may cause rifts with the EU's new member states in Eastern Europe, whose past under Soviet rule makes them wary of Russian ambitions in Europe.

"If you sit in Warsaw or Prague the last thing you want to hear is that Russia, Germany and France are building a new power triangle," said Dominique Moisi, a senior fellow at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris. In a sense, it is France that is the odd one out. Germany and Russia are drawn together by geography and significant commercial relations: Germany is Russia's largest trading partner.

The two countries' relationship intensified with the reportedly warm friendship between Putin, who speaks fluent German and was the only leader invited to Schrdöer's 60th birthday in April, and Schröder, who this summer adopted a 3-year-old Russian orphan.

Meanwhile, as signs mount that France is losing authority in an enlarged EU with Germany at its geographical center, a senior German official said France was somewhat suspicious of close ties between Russia and Germany. Chirac had to push for an invitation to last year's St. Petersburg summit meeting.

"France is trying to stick close to Germany's side because it knows it is losing influence in Brussels," Barysch said.

Some say the talks in Sochi represent something that cannot last and that the real power-triangle in Europe is to be found elsewhere.

"It's a pale imitation of a 19th-century type imperial club, devoid of political standards," Moisi said. "The real, natural, logical club of three in Europe is Berlin, Paris, London. That is the future."