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Poland Sinks the Summit
The Russia-EU summit will take place in Samara today. It was known long in advance that it would be the least successful summit in the entire history of relations between Moscow and Brussels. Now it is all a matter of not letting ties break irreparably, especially after Poland announced yesterday that it was limiting contacts with Russia.
As the summit approached, both the European Union and Russia tried to show that relations between them were not as bad as they seemed. EU High Representative for Common Foreign Policy Javier Solana mentioned that Russia is the EU's “biggest and most important neighbor” and that they were moving toward a strategic partnership. He was seconded by the Russian president's special representative for relations with the EU Sergey Yastrzhembsky, who called rumors of a crisis between Moscow and Brussels highly exaggerated. However, neither of them denied the presence of serious problems between them.
The problems themselves are not so critical. There have been problems before every summit. But there was always a solid positive side. They succeeded in settling at least one important problem before the summit. This time, the summit will be nothing but a list of problems.
The last straw that both sides could grasp at to save the summit was German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's trip to Moscow Monday. But that visit produced mutual compliments and nothing more.
The current state of relations is even reflected in the participants in the summit. Almost for the first time, Solana will not attend. He remembered at the last minute that he has to be in Aachen to receive the prestigious Charlemagne Prize. Russian president Vladimir Putin will receive German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of the European Commission Manuel Barroso.
“No documents will be signed at this summit,” Yastrzhembsky warned in advance. Solana summarized that “We have to discuss the export of meat and agricultural products from Poland to Russia, Russian deliveries of oil to Lithuania and recent events in Estonia.” That does seem to be a full list of the dominant topics for the summit.
The EU leaders will raise one more issue that will not be very pleasant for Russia, however. An anonymous source in the German government circles said just before the summit that “human rights in Russia and the shortcomings of Russian democracy” will also be a topic for discussion at the summit and that the EU would like to give Russia “practical advice on remedying the situation, without lecturing.” The same source also confirmed that the journalists accompanying the EU delegation intended to follow the protest by the Russian opposition “very attentively.” “If the Russian security services behave adequately and observe human rights, I don't think there will be any complications in the functioning of the summit,” he said soothingly.
EC member Peter Mandelson, who is responsible for EC trade policy, decided to give Moscow two pieces of advice even before the summit began. In an interview with Interfax, he said “A strong prosperous Russia cannot be built on heavily centralized political control over the state and the economy… Russia needs to be less defensive and recognize that great power status can never mean isolation.”
To avoid darkening the stage for the summit any more than it already is, Russia made a conciliatory gesture toward Estonia yesterday and reopened the bridge at Narva on the Russian-Estonian border. Restrictions had been imposed on the movement of trucks across the bridge, supposedly because of its poor condition. Tallinn reacted frantically to the move, calling it Moscow's latest retaliation” for the relocation of the Bronze Soldier, after which the Estonian ambassador was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Poland then dropped the next fly into the ointment, which had wings sticking out of it as it was. Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Robert Szaniawski announced that Warsaw would refrain from maintaining bilateral relations with Russia until Moscow cancels its ban on the import of Polish meat. That was why Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga ignored an invitation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to come to Moscow on a working visit last month. Szaniawski added that “Poland would not back down” and the next step was for Russia to make, and it should be “an unconditional, full and effective lifting of the embargo.” This is an unprecedented step on the part of Poland and an ultimatum to Moscow that practically rules out any compromise on the toughest problem in EU-Russian relations today, at least for the foreseeable future.
None of the other problems seem likely to be solved soon either. As the same German source suggested, “Many instances of aggravation of conditions in Russia, as well as the digging in by state structures in connected with the upcoming elections in Russia, and the leadership of German and the EU is aware of that.” If that is so, it means the current cold spell in Russian-EU relations can be expected to last at least until next year. Until then, the task of Russian and European leader at this and subsequent summits is not to let their relations collapse completely.
Gennady Sysoev
All the Article in Russian as of May 18, 2007
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