Brussels is to issue non-binding recommendations that Moscow’s standards of external-relations governance are in breach of EU best-practice guidance.
Russia’s barely stealthy incursion into Crimea and ultimate land-grab “fall somewhat short of established benchmarks,” the European Commission is expected to warn.
The standards set out in a 2012 Green Paper indicate that sending unmarked forces into a neighbouring sovereign state to reclaim the territory at the barrel of a gun “may not be in line with optimum external governance performance metrics.”
Under the green paper provisions, in such situations the commission can send a “reasoned negative opinion.” The recipient “is encouraged to take utmost account” of the recommendations in any future course of action.
The commission then can conduct a “mid-term performance review report” to check the recipient has made progress towards bringing its invasionary zeal into line with the guidelines.
EUHQ declined to say whether Brussels would take such a draconian step.
But one EU official confided that the commission was willing to “benchmark the fuck out of ’em.”
BM