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Ruxit is real: Russia’s exit from Europe

Josef Janning of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Leaving aside a few brief moments in the Russian policy discourse of the 1990s, post-Soviet Russia has always thought of the country’s role as being with Europe, but not of Europe. Dating from the times of the Helsinki process, which led to the founding of the OSCE, a favoured metaphor in Soviet and Russian thinking was the inclusive notion of a “common European house” from Lisbon to Vladivostok. This space of sovereign states would include Russia as the largest among them – and the United States would be left on the margins or outside.

That chapter is closing now, as the Russian leadership abandons its own idea of inclusiveness. German Chancellor Angela Merkel used the term at the Davos World Economic Forum this year, but Moscow gave no answer to her invitation to return to the wider European discourse.

For the full article, please visit the website of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

(Photo: kremlin.ru)

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Josef Janning of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Josef Janning joined the European Council on Foreign Relations in April 2014 as Senior Policy Fellow in the Berlin Office. 2013/2014 he was a Mercator Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that he served as Director of Studies at the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels. Between 2001 and 2010 Josef has lead the international policy work as Senior Director of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a major private German foundation. Earlier positions in his career include Deputy Director of the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) at Munich University from 1995-2007. Previously, he has held teaching positions at the University of Mainz, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and as Guest Professor at Renmin University of Beijing. He has worked with leading think tanks in Europe, the US and Asia, and engaged in and lead various international study groups, high-level groups and commissions on European affairs, global governance, transformation to democracy, security and defence policy and transatlantic relations. Josef has published widely on European Affairs, International Relations, EU foreign and security policy, German foreign and European policy as well as global affairs. On these issues he also is a frequent commentator with German and international media.

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