On October 2, a referendum in a far-flung corner of Europe - Ireland - will decide whether the European Union goes down a bad and dangerous road.
At stake is the fate of the Lisbon Treaty, an EU constitution in all but name, which would entrench employers' rights to pay low wages to migrant workers, and move the EU in the direction of becoming a military superpower.
These steps will be unalterable by member states under EU law if the Irish people vote "Yes", and both are of concern to people in Russia.
Under the treaty, rulings such as one by the European Court of Justice last year, which banned Luxembourg from guaranteeing migrant workers equal rights, would effectively become enshrined in EU law.
This would reinforce a nasty trend across Europe, the "race to the bottom" where workers' jobs and wages are sacrificed on the altar of corporate profits at a time of crisis. Under neo-liberal EU rules, multilateral corporations such as cost-cutting car giants can shift production from one country to another on a CEO's whim.
In Russia, tens of thousands of workers at AvtoVAZ and GAZ are being thrown out of work at the same time as the new owners of troubled carmaker Opel, Magna and Sberbank, decide where the axe will fall next across Europe.
So for Russians looking for work in Europe, or those working for slash-and-burn multinationals, the treaty would be bad news.
Worryingly, Lisbon would also commit EU member states to a common defence policy and strengthen the arms industry-influenced European Defence Agency, bringing it within official EU structures and promoting EU arms sales globally.
Such militarisation is dangerous for Russia, which could justifiably fear EU military intervention in any new Georgia-type conflict.
When it comes to the treaty, the European Commission can't take no for an answer, it seems. The French and the Dutch both voted "No" to an EU Constitution a few years ago, and the Irish - one of the few peoples allowed a say on Lisbon - are being forced to vote on it for a second time, despite rejecting it last year.
An unholy trinity of Ireland's political establishment, big business groups and the country's right-wing media are backing the treaty to the hilt. Using what Socialist MEP Joe Higgins, a leader of the "No" campaign, has called "scare tactics", the Irish government is threatening that rejecting the treaty will cost jobs.
In the run-up to the referendum, European Commission officials have been sent into Irish schools to push for a "Yes" vote, and an EC vice president has even campaigned for the treaty alongside anti-union Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary - in clear contradiction of EU rules.
Yet the Irish people, radicalised by the crisis and rising unemployment, could still sink the treaty. Just like the Russians on the other side of Europe, they don't take kindly to being bullied by bureaucrats from Brussels.
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