madam president my congratulations to the rapporteur
i think this is an extremely important report
russia's strategic thinking it seems to me is one of the most significant problems facing the european union at this time
if we do not understand how russia thinks about itself in the world we shall not actually make sense of what the kremlin says and does
there is in fact a logic to russia's actions but this is not the same as ours
while the eu has made the peaceful resolution of conflict the centre of its thinking russia has no compunction about using force as we saw in georgia last year
so the real key is how russia sees power
in the european tradition power should be supervised by democratic institutions
to russia power is to be concentrated in the belief that through such concentration power will be more effective
this is very dangerous for states that russia sees as weak
they automatically become targets for the expansion of russian power
the recent secretive purchase of a large shareholding in the hungarian energy company mol by a russian enterprise is thus more than a mere commercial transaction it illustrates how russia moves into an unoccupied space
from the perspective of power the european union and european integration are inexplicable meaningless processes for russia
in russian eyes the transfer of sovereignty is an abomination not a way of securing peace
so and it is vital that we recognise this for russia the european union is the problem
its success is a puzzle and above all it is an obstacle to the maximisation of russia's power
the european union's future success therefore depends on recognising how russia thinks about power
very differently from europe
and let there be no illusions about this
