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Russia Proposes New Peace to Europe
The foreign ministers of the European Union have decided to renew negotiations with Russia on a new agreement on partnership and cooperation, in spite of the opposition of Lithuania. The negotiations will begin anew at the Russia-EU summit in Nice on Friday, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will attend. Moscow is planning on talking about a new world order, not about relations with the EU.
The last agreement between the EU and Russia was signed in 1997 and was in force for ten years. Last spring, after lengthy wrangling, the parties were able to agree to continue negotiations at the Russia-EU summit in Khanty-Mansi. The first round took place in July, but negotiations were frozen after the war in Georgia. At the emergency summit of the EU on September 1, it was decided to freeze negotiations, and Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic wanted to impose sanctions on Russia for its “disproportionate reaction” to the Georgian aggression.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged Lithuania and Poland to support a united EU position. Yesterday Great Britain and Sweden also came around. Lithuanian never did, but it does not have a right to a veto now. Russian representative at the EU Vladimir Chizhov praised the decision and announced that Medvedev’s proposal for a new architecture of Euro-Atlantic security will be a main point in the talks.
After the Russia-EU summit, Medvedev will continue on his way to the G20 summit in Washington, where he will discuss the same proposal with U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama. “The agreement we are proposing envisages the participation of the EU, United States and Canada – we are specking of Euro-Atlantic security. At the same time, we are not trying to exclude NATO. Our idea for the agreement reflects a synthesis of approaches and suggests the participation of all the countries of the Euro-Atlantic space: the countries of NATO, the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Community,” Chizhov revealed.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 11, 2008
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