If "Europe" means "the EU" then I don't see a whole heck of a lot we can do. We have precious little leverage with Russia, and even less trust. We have zero leverage with Georgia - they're an American client state, why should they listen to the Union?
Realistically, what we have at our immediate disposal is monetary aid and humanitarian aid for the carrot and trade sanctions for the stick.
Russia doesn't need monetary gifts. They may or may not need humanitarian aid, but I'm not sure why they should trust us enough to allow us to dispense it on any useful scale anyway. And there is no reason to employ trade sanctions against Russia - it is not clear that they are the aggressor in this crisis. (And it's not clear that we even have the capability to deploy meaningful trade sanctions against Russia.)
Georgia might need monetary gifts - but I really don't think Europe should make a policy of throwing money at American client states. There are plenty of more deserving recipients. Georgia very probably needs humanitarian aid by now - or shortly will if things continue at the present pace. That should, of course, be granted, regardless of what we might think or not think of the Georgian government. Deploying trade sanctions against Georgia is pretty pointless - they're losing the war badly enough as it is, if they need any more stick in order to reach a negotiated settlement, then trade sanctions are unlikely to be it.
So humanitarian aid to Georgia to attempt to repair some of the civilian wreckage of the war. Same to Russia and South Ossetia, if they think they need it and want to accept it. That would be my recommendation, at least until we have sufficiently hard facts on the ground to start issuing arrest orders for the relevant war criminals.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
The European Commission has released €1 million in fast-track aid to help cover the urgent humanitarian needs of thousands of civilians affected by the fighting in the region of South Ossetia and beyond in Georgia. Experts from the Commission's Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) are in the region and are closely following the humanitarian situation. Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "The European Commission is extremely concerned about the fighting and deplores the loss of lives and the human suffering it causes. We call for an immediate end of hostilities. Thousands of civilians, women and children are caught up in the fighting in and around South Ossetia. Our fast-track funding of 1 M€ is a very first contribution to meet their basic humanitarian needs. Further funds could be released as soon as the assessment of the needs will be finalized on the ground. However, emergency relief teams are only able to operate if all conflict parties respect international humanitarian law. Humanitarian access and safe passage for uprooted civilians and aid workers is crucial."
Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "The European Commission is extremely concerned about the fighting and deplores the loss of lives and the human suffering it causes. We call for an immediate end of hostilities. Thousands of civilians, women and children are caught up in the fighting in and around South Ossetia. Our fast-track funding of 1 M€ is a very first contribution to meet their basic humanitarian needs. Further funds could be released as soon as the assessment of the needs will be finalized on the ground. However, emergency relief teams are only able to operate if all conflict parties respect international humanitarian law. Humanitarian access and safe passage for uprooted civilians and aid workers is crucial."
