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Joint hydrogen energy projects are components of the comprehensive Russian-German energy cooperation which has been ongoing for more than five decades. Due to increasing demand for hydrogen resulting from Germany’s energy transition (Energiewende) and to the potential of the hydrogen sector in Russia and its focus on export, the fundamental interests of the two states are well aligned. In 2020, Moscow and Berlin stepped up their political dialogue in this field, and companies from Germany and Russia went on to conclude their first agreements. The new aspect of this cooperation with Berlin is also important to Moscow in political terms.
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December 2020 saw the completion of another part (Bulgaria–Serbia) of the European section of the TurkStream gas pipeline, through which gas has been exported from Russia to south--eastern Europe since January 2020. The capacity of the entire route is not yet being fully used, but it has already reduced Russia’s dependence on transit via Ukraine. In 2020, around12 bcm of gas was sent via TurkStream instead of Ukrainian pipelines: half to Turkey, and the rest to Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia. Ultimately, the pipeline will also transport gas via Serbia to Hungary, Austria and Romania. The rapid implementation of the entire project, in a region where infrastructure investments usually take a long time, represents a success for the Kremlin. Neither the economic challenges linked to the COVID-19 pandemic nor the political opposition of the US to new links between Europe and Russia (which will mainly strike at the Nord Stream 2 pipeline) have got in the way of the project’s completion.
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Although the importance of global climate challenges is systematically growing, the actions which the Russian authorities have undertaken in this area to date have been very limited. Moscow has not evaded international cooperation to combat climate change, but at the same time it has not undertaken any very ambitious commitments in this regard. The benchmark for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that Russia has agreed to is exceptionally favourable to it. Thus, the reduction goals which the Kremlin has announced do not require the authorities to make radical changes to the Russian economy. Individual Russian companies are showing greater interest in the climate agenda, but it is difficult to consider the results of their activities as significant, especially compared to the experience of international companies. The measures undertaken to change the Russian energy mix are also poor: renewable energy sources only account for a marginal share in electricity production in Russia (in total, about 0.4%). It is true that the Russian authorities have begun to notice the importance of climate challenges; this has been confirmed, among other things, by the latest editions of the strategic documents regarding the development of the state. However, these documents do not offer any ambitious climate policy measures. The authorities’ lack of determination and the interests of lobbying groups from the oil and gas sector may prove to be the most serious barrier to changes in this area in the coming years.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky gained full power under a year and a half ago, but it is already becoming increasingly difficult for him to implement his declared political goals. This is due to the increasingly weak control he wields over his own Servant of the People party, his incompetent choice of collaborators and, more broadly, his lack of a comprehensive vision of reforms. Since the government reshuffle in March 2020, Zelensky has abandoned his plan to carry out a comprehensive reconstruction of Ukraine’s political elite by replacing its main figures with untainted ‘new faces’. This is what he had promised to his voters. However, he has failed to find an effective mechanism for selecting suitable candidates for key positions, which negatively affects the process of reforms being implemented. Servant of the People de facto losing its parliamentary majority, which had previously enabled it to independently enact laws, forces this party’s representatives to constantly strive to reach agreements with other parliamentary groups and groups of influence. This is yet another factor undermining the effectiveness of actions carried out by the Ukrainian leadership. Moreover, there are constantly more indications that corruption is being tolerated and there has been a return to the direct control of law enforcement bodies. This, in turn, reinforces the feeling that in his governance style and practice, ‘anti-system’ Zelensky is increasingly resembling his ‘pro-system’ predecessors.
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Belarus is the only country in Europe where public opinion polls are not published on a regular basis. This is a result of repressive policy of the Belarusian government, which has effectively banned sociological research related to politically ‘sensitive’ topics such as political ratings. This means that little is known about the attitudes of the Belarusian people or their views on political issues. At the request of the OSW and on the basis of questions it prepared, Belarusian interviewers conducted a telephone survey between 26 November and 16 December 2020 with a representative sample of1000 respondents, the aim of which was to examine Belarusian opinions about selected countries, including Poland and Russia. It should be emphasised that no one has conducted a similarly comprehensive public survey for many months.
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The Nagorno-Karabakh war of autumn 2020 and the military parade organized in Baku after its end, which was jointly hosted by the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, highlighted the potential of the alliance between both countries. The close ties between Baku and Ankara result from a strategic choice made almost three decades ago. The diverse activities they have undertaken to strengthen their cooperation have varied in intensity over that period, but their overall direction has remained unchanged. As a result, Azerbaijan has gradually distanced itself from Russia, and through its cooperation with Turkey, it has moved closer (albeit mainly economically) to the West. Ankara, on the other hand, has strengthened its position in the South Caucasus. This has led to the formation of an Ankara-Bakuaxis, which presents a challenge to Moscow because it limits Russian influence in the region. However, the Turkic duo has been taking care not to antagonize Russia directly; one expression of this approach is their acceptance of Moscow’s key role in resolving the Karabakh conflict.
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In December 2020, Russia launched a mass-scale action for vaccinating its citizens with the domestically produced Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. It was only on 2 February 2021 that the Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, announced the results of its phase-III clinical trials which showed that the vaccine’s efficacy rate was more than 91%. The way the Russian leadership reports on Sputnik V’s production and rollout is chaotic and the published data is incompatible and non-transparent. Only rough information has been shared regarding the number of vaccinations performed thus far: the Ministry of Health has failed to provide precise figures and, according to estimates by the Gamaleya Institute, the immunisation campaign has so far covered 1.5–2 million citizens. However, these figures are inconsistent with the data reported by the individual regions.
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The deal finalising the sale of Nova TV to PPF on 13 October 2020 completed the process of key Czech media organisations being taken over by local capital. At the beginning of 2008, foreign entities controlled the vast majority of the Czech media market. However, a wide section of the popular press titles and radio and TV stations was taken over by domestic billionaires in the following years. They took advantage of the problems the owners of traditional media outlets had to face: both temporary (the decline in advertising revenue during the economic crisis) and structural (the increasing popularity of the Internet at the expense of the printed press). The expansion of domestic business empires in this sector was quickly branded as anoligarchisation of the media in the Czech Republic. Local billionaires treated their new assets as tools of political influence. They do not rely on the mass media as a source of profits. Instead, they use it as a means for protecting their businesses from attacks by competitors or state interference. The mass media has even become a tool for gaining or consolidating a political and business position. There are many indications that, for similar reasons, the richest Czechs are also buying media outlets abroad in countries where they do business.
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In December 2020, President Vladimir Putin signed a package of laws tightening regulations on non-governmental organisations, public gatherings and media censorship. It is one of the elements marking a new quality in the Kremlin’s domestic policy: Russian authoritarianism has de facto abandoned the pretence of democratic procedures in favour of increased control and repression.
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On 3 November, the Romanian parliament declared that 4 June would be a new public holiday commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Trianon on that day in 1920. This document formalised the transfer of large territories then belonging to the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary to the neighbouring countries, including Romania. These lands today constitute over 40% of Romania’s land area. Over the past two years, preparations for the 100th anniversary of the treaty’s adoption have exacerbated the relationship between Romania and Hungary, which perceives this event as a national tragedy. The two states’ widely divergent perceptions of the treaty, and the presence in Romania of a large and politically active Hungarian minority as its result, are a constant source of tensions between the two countries. The Hungarian problem, symbolised by the aforementioned document, resonates throughout society, and has traditionally been exploited as an instrument of political struggle by representatives of the main Romanian political groups. Budapest has also been willing to exploit the ‘Trianon complex’ in the Hungarian mentality for its domestic political aims. However, Hungarian politics does not constitute a real threat to the stability of Romania in the current international environment. The geographic location of both countries obliges them to cooperate, especially in the fields of economy and energy, which mitigates their historical and symbolic disputes.
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The high susceptibility of Ukrainian officials to corruption has been one factor affecting the condition of the Ukrainian state. Since 2014, the government has managed to create several anti-corruption institutions whose independence from the executive is one of the main conditions for Ukraine to continue receiving financial assistance from the West. Over the past year, this system has become more robust, and the first sentences were issued in cases involving state officials caught up in corruption schemes. However, despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s declared determination to combat corruption among state officials, recent months have seen measures that may weaken the key institutions established to combat corruption; this would be tantamount to reversing reforms in this field. These actions have been initiated by politicians and oligarchs intending to make the fight against corruption less effective. This has triggered major concern from Western donors (who are responding to this by threatening to halt financial support and to suspend the visa-free regime) and from Ukrainian civil society.
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During the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moscow has stepped up its activities in the global‘ vaccine race’ against SARS-CoV-2. So far Russia has registered two vaccines, which was announced by President Vladimir Putin himself. The presentation of Sputnik V, which the Russian government has branded as the ‘world’s first vaccine’, caused controversy from the very start, for both medical (as the clinical trial procedure was not completed) and ethical reasons (forcing ‘volunteers’ to take part in the tests). Foreign specialists, alongside the Russian medical community and the Russian public, have expressed scepticism about the insufficiently tested preparation. Despite this, the government is planning to carry out a mass campaign of public vaccination using Sputnik V and export this vaccine, mainly to developing countries.
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On 15 October Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sooronobay Jeenbekov, resigned from his position and his duties were taken over by the opposition leader, Sadyr Japarov. The change in power was brought about by large-scale protests which broke out on 5 October, the day after the election; subsequently the protesters took over the main buildings of the central administration in Bishkek and released opposition leaders who had been imprisoned (among them Japarov). The demonstrations, which were forceful but not long-lasting, resulted in a compromise of sorts which led to changes in the highest state positions, the announcement of an early presidential election and a rerun of the parliamentary election.
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The search continues in Germany for a site for final repository of high-level radioactive waste. A disused salt mine in Gorleben, which was earmarked as the site more than forty years ago, has been definitively eliminated as a choice due to not meeting geological requirements. For years, the choice of the site was a source of severe protest, and this was a major factor in the founding of the Green Party in 1980. Still today, the issue of permanent storage of radioactive waste in Germany is stigmatized. The new process of finding a site has been devised to avoid making the same mistakes made many years ago, when the decision was made in an enigmatic manner with no public consultations. Although the decision as to the new and definitive site was intended to be made on the basis of scientific criteria, the matter has again become a political matter and will also be a major campaign issue in the run-up to the Bundestag elections. This will call into doubt the credibility of the entire process and could seriously hamper the making of the final decision, envisaged by 2031.
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Russia’s ruling elite believes that the outcome of the US presidential elections will have only a negligible impact on Washington’s policy towards Moscow, because the American establishment is convinced that Russia under Vladimir Putin has consistently pursued an anti-American policy. In Russia’s view, each candidate has both strong and weak points, but in the end the Kremlin would prefer to see Donald Trump remain in the White House. To this end, Moscow has been active – particularly in the sphere of propaganda – with the aim of weakening Joe Biden’s candidacy and stoking domestic tensions in American society. However, the scope of Russia’s activity seems more limited compared to the previous electoral campaign. However, Moscow is likely to step up its activities should a political conflict emerge over the outcome of the election. A victory for the Democratic presidential candidate will result in revisions in US policy towards Russia. The incoming Biden administration can be expected to combine tough rhetoric on its divergences with Russia in the field of values with attempts to find areas where their interests converge and where cooperation can take place (such as arms control, the resolution of regional conflicts and the fight against terrorism), complemented by efforts to coordinate the West’s policy towards Russia.
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Germany hopes that Joe Biden’s upcoming presidency will contribute to restoring transatlantic bonds. It is pinning its hopes on both sides sharing a similar perception of the key challenges, the appreciation of the importance of alliances, and on the US returning to the use of multilateral instruments. German-American relations will no longer be burdened by the confrontational rhetoric and strictly transactional approach which were typical of the outgoing president. However, the political change in the United States will not remove the differences of positions and interests that underlie the main disputes between Berlin and Washington. Moreover, given the fact that both Democrats and Republicans were running neck and neck during the presidential race, Germany may modify its expectations with regard to the new American administration to become more realistic. German politicians have signalled their readiness to engage more in maintaining the partnership with the US, but whether they will be able to put these declarations into practice remains an open question, considering that elections to the Bundestag are due to be held next year. The main difficulty for Germany will be making adjustments in the area of security, mainly due to the German public’s reluctance to increase spending on defence. Coordination of policy towards China will be an equally important challenge.
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The massive public protests against the rigging of the presidential election’s results which began on 9 August have led to the deepest political crisis in the history of independent Belarus. For the first time, a situation has arisen in which anti-regime demonstrations have been held for over three months, numbering over 100,000 people in the capital at the times of greatest mobilisation. Despite the fall in the number of protesters observed in recent weeks, the public’s anger is not waning, which is making it difficult for the authorities to control society. In response to the rebellion by a large number of its citizens, the regime has chosen the tactics of repression and intimidation. As a result, Belarusian authoritarianism is becoming more and more oppressive, gradually taking on the characteristics of a militia state. As he concentrates on keeping power, Alyaksandr Lukashenka has come to rely principally on the security sector, who see preserving the regime as a chance to hold onto their own privileges. In parallel to the increasing importance of the so-called siloviki in the government apparatus, Lukashenka has weakened the position of the civilian element of the nomenklatura. The regime is also pursuing an increasingly confrontational policy towards the West, to make it seem more credible that the protests have been inspired from abroad; in the economic sphere, economic reforms have been blocked as the regime focuses on controlling business. Lukashenka’s future maybe decided by Russia, which is trying to use the crisis in the Belarusian system of power to gain full domination in Belarus.
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In recent months, the rules for gas transmission through the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe have been changing at an ever faster rate. There has been much talk about opening new routes for exporting Russian gas to the European Union along routes which would bypass this region, which has led to a decline in its transit importance. The ongoing expansion of the network of interconnectors and alternative connections is changing the routes of gas transmission on the Central European market. No less important, although still somewhat less noticeable, are the changing rules for the transport of gas from Russia to the EU. With the expiration of a succession of long-term transit contracts (Ukraine’s at the end of 2019, Poland’s in May 2020, and also those of Slovakia and Bulgaria over the next few years), it will be possible for all of the region’s gas transmission to operate on the basis of EU regulations, namely the Third Energy Package, including its network codes. As a result, there is an increase in transparency and competition, and access to the infrastructure is becoming more attractive, which encourages European companies to use it. At the same time, however, gas transmission from Russia is becoming more unpredictable. This is illustrated by the changes this year in the flow of gas through the Yamal gas pipeline, Ukraine’s main lines and the Trans-Balkan route. The future of gas transmission in the region will also depend on external factors: the processes taking place in Ukraine, the actual physical levels of Russian gas transit, and the situation in the European gas market.
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Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election means that Washington will continue its confrontational policy towards Beijing. At the same time, it will clearly change its tactics and attempt to mobilise the US’s network of alliances to contain China. On 13 November, China congratulated Biden and Kamala Harris, but highlighted the need to resolve possible legal disputes. The expected change in the US administration has been widely commented upon in the Chinese press. The initial reactions from China reveal expectations that competition with Washington will continue in almost all key areas, although Beijing hopes to unblock some channels for diplomatic contacts. It also expects an extensive US-EU dialogue to begin discussing what actions should be taken with regard to the PRC. The first reactions from Europe suggest that this scenario is very likely. Biden’s victory has been presented as an opportunity for a joint response to the challenges linked to China by Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, and some representatives of Brussels. However, creating a common front on Beijing will require a number of structural problems in transatlantic relations to be resolved, including in the areas of trade and services, digital technologies and security.
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