Kaliningrad: Russian Outpost or Window on Europe?

Contents

Summary
Background
A Region in Transition: From Past to Present
Why does the Kaliningrad problem remain unsolved and why is it important to solve it?
Past Research
The Kaliningrad Problem in the Domestic Policy Context
Russia-Europe Collaborative Experience on Kaliningrad: an Institutional Framework
Thinking About the Future of Kaliningrad
Policy recommendations
Bibliography

Summary

This study aims at the search of ways and means to solve the Kaliningrad problem that emerged after the breakdown of the Soviet Union and in the context of EU enlargement. The paper recommends developing a clear and coherent Russian strategy on the Kaliningrad issue that should be based on providing the Kaliningrad Region with a special legal status and broader foreign policy and economic powers. The author also suggests to conclude a EU-Russia biding agreement on Kaliningrad that could solve the most important problems related to Kaliningrad's sovereignty, elimination of trade barriers, development of energy and transport infrastructure, freedom of movement of goods and people, fighting organized crime, environment degradation and mass diseases. The paper concludes that Kaliningrad could be successfully integrated into 'Big Europe' through a series of consecutive and mutually reinforcing measures - economic (first of all, by implementing the EU-Russia Common European Economic Space initiative and then by creating a Free Trade Area), social and cultural - and could become a 'meeting place' for different civilizations and cultures.

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