Dr. Wolfgang Zellner and Ulrich Kühn at MGIMO, Moscow

On 11/12 April 2011, the European Studies Institute of the MGIMO-University, the Institute of European Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the NATO Information Office in Russia and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation or-ganized a conference on “European Security Governance Institutions: Prospects for Im-provement”. About 70 scholars, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of NATO, of the EU and of a number of embassies in Moscow convened for the conference.

Discussions focused on the question of why there has been nearly no progress in European security politics, either in disarmament, or in regional conflicts or in the institutional setting despite the halfway successful new start in US-Russian relations. This question was also addressed by Wolfgang Zellner, Deputy Director of the IFSH, who mentioned a number of reasons in his talk: a values gap between Russia and the West, asymmetrical interests, a mindset still coloured by issues of the East-West confrontation, and - perhaps most important - the lack of a joint positive vision. The conference made it its task to collect and assess practical steps in the areas of conventional arms control, tactical nuclear weapons, missile defence, regulation of the unresolved regional conflicts and co-operation between Russia and NATO as well as between Russia and the EU.