Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) begins a press conference in Lahti, Finland, with President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso (right) and Finnish Prime Minister and European Union President Matti Vanhanen.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Vladimir Putin Wins the Dinner
// EU leaders leave Lahti as outsiders
Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Lahti, Finland, to meet with European Union leaders and European Commission officials. Many expected the Europeans to greet Putin in an aggressive mood. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov did not see any signs of a battle among the participants in the informal summit, but neither was any evidence of agreement evident – not on the Energy Charter, human rights or the Russian-Georgian conflict.
At dinner, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested negotiating an Agreement on Strategic Partnership and Cooperation between Russia and the European Union to replace the old one that is about to expire. He thanked the Europeans for all they had done to develop capitalism in Russia. Now, Putin made it clear, they were forced to reap the harvest of what they had sown. The leaders of European countries must speak with Russia as with a business partner.
Kommersant has learned that Putin explained at that dinner for the first what “energy security” means for Russia. He expressed greatest concern over what he called “security of demand” for Russian fuel in Europe. That was obviously a carefully prepared response to questions of “supply security” posed to Russia by Europe and a type of psychological attack on the Europeans, who, unlike Putin, had not been tempered by a gas war with Ukraine.
The after-dinner press conference showed how effective that psychological attack had been. President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso smiled wanly, while Finnish Prime Minister and President of the EU Matti Vanhanen was simply dour. Vanhanen told journalists that they had had a nice dinner with the Russian president and hadn't planned to make any decisions at it.
“The European Union intends to form a close and mutually balanced long-term, profitable energy agreement with Russia,” Vanhanen said. “The recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya was also touched on at the dinner.”
The mention of the deceased journalist had the same effect on me as fingernails on a chalkboard.
“That terrible crime must be investigated,” Vanhanen continued, “and the guilty brought to justice. We also discussed the issue of cooperation between Russia and Georgia and noted our concern over the growth of tensions.” Then Vanhanen turned his attention to the Northern Dimension program for Russian-EU relations.
Putin began his address to journalists with the praises of Lahti, “a small city by European standards but in excellent, outstanding condition… I want to thank the residents of the city for the very kind reception.” He was probably not referring to the hundreds of Finns demonstrating outside the conference center where the negotiations took place. The demonstrators were demanding the return of Karelia to Finland.
Then Putin turned to the topic that is likely to be his favorite for the next several months – security of demand. “I drew our colleagues' attention to the fact that, if we say that the European Union covers the needs of 44 percent of its consumers with Russian gas supplies, then 67 percent of Russian gas export will be European supplies, supplies to Europe. That means in essence that Russia today is more dependent on European consumers than the consumers are on their suppliers.”
Barroso characterized Putin in his statement as “as global player with global responsibility,” giving the impression that the game was going Putin's way. “We can say firmly that Europe needs Russia Justas Russia needs Europe,” the president of the European Commission continued. “We need to acknowledge that interdependency and win from it. We need to raise the level of mutual trust. To do that, we need transparency, supremacy of law, mutuality of relations and an absence of discrimination. Openness of markets and access to them.”
The topic had turned to the Energy Charter.
The first question in the press conference was directed by a German journalist to the Russian president. He asked if Putin was prepared to include energy issues in the new agreement on partnership and cooperation. Listening to Putin's long and generalized answer, I was sure that the answer was no, until he topped off his rhetorical display by saying “In general, we wouldn't mind if those principles were included there.”
That was not all, however. Putin continued cheerfully, “Besides energy, we have high technology, aviation, space, biology and so on and so on.” In reality, that was practically an exhaustive list. “We cannot include issues from all industries in a document that regulates the principles of relations between the European Union and Russia. But we would not be against incorporating these principles there.”
That was another stroke that had been prepared in advance. The Europeans will not have liberalization of energy markets alone.
“You know,” Vanhanen said, “there are definite complications on both sides.” Maybe he had been hoping that Putin would have some sort of pleasant surprise for them at the press conference, as he had for German Chancellor Angela Merkel not long ago when German received exclusive supplies from the Stockman deposit. Alas.
“Frankly,” Barroso countered effectively, “I think we should not let energy issues divide Russia and Europe the way communism once did.”
“Before this summit,” Vanhanen said, “quite a few of you were expecting that the Union will be divided on the question of energy policy. Actually I could ask you to raise your hands if you were expecting that.” Lots of raised hands. “Yes, there were quite a few but we were actually very united. Our method for this summit was such that we first had a long debate between the EU Member States to find a common approach for our meeting with President Putin. And we succeeded in doing that. And that was one reason why we had such a flourishing discussion and debate with President Putin.” So flourishing that its participants could hardly look at each other as they stood before their microphones.
The inevitable question about Georgia was asked. Putin, of course, prepared for it in advance too. “We very much regret and are very concerned with the fact that the situation is developing in the direction of bloodshed,” he said. “And today the Georgian leadership is aspiring to restore its territorial integrity by military means and they are almost acknowledging this openly. So let's pay attention to just what and who we are discussing here. We are discussing very small nations in the Caucasus. The Ossetian people live in Ossetia, and about 70,000 people live in Southern Ossetia. But already 40,000 are refugees. And about 150,000 people live in Abkhazia. These are state formations, peoples that are much smaller than Georgia itself. And here lies the trouble and the tragedy. And this is what you need to be afraid of, and this is what we, together with you, need to avoid, namely bloodshed in the region.”
Then the Sakhalin question.
“First of all the issue consists in ensuring environmental security…” the Russian president replied. “But despite the need to ensure that the environmental requirements are met, there are other problems with respect to Sakhalin II. Our partners want to double their costs. What does this mean for Russia? According to the production sharing agreements we are not going to receive income before all the expenses are recovered. We are not receiving anything now, despite the fact that oil has been produced for several years now, and if they increase their expenses we are not going to receive anything for the next ten years. Look at the additional expenses. The legal costs have almost doubled, expenses for foreign personnel have slightly more than doubled, and the same applies to expenses for business trips. According to the agreements Russian labor, materials and equipment would make up 70 percent the total. Today the figure is not even at 50 percent. All of these problems that remain on the sidelines of the scandals are being covered over by those who are intent on defending their commercial interests. We are not creating a big problem here. We believe that we need to sit down at the table and come to an agreement. And I am sure that we'll find solutions.”
Vanhanen and Barroso had nothing to add.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 23, 2006
|
|
|
