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Lithuania Thawed Permafrost
// at the Russia-EU summit
Khanty-Mansiysk summit to launch drafting a new agreement between Russia the EU
Today the Russia-EU summit starts in Khanty-Mansiysk where Dmitry Medvedev debuts as Russia’s President. The summit is supposed to launch talks about concluding a new partnership and cooperation agreement, which has been called off within the last year and a half. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t expect that the agreement will be signed soon. Besides, discussing frozen conflicts can become another sore point for Moscow.
Europe has been looking forward to the current Russia-EU summit in Khanty-Mansiysk: It’s going to be a true premiere for the new President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. It need be said that Russia’s new head of state visited Germany June 5-6 to establish personal contact with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But that visit gave no answer to a crucial question: What Moscow’s policy towards the EU will be like under Dmitry Medvedev. To make up for this deficiency, the President gave a detailed interview to Reuters, which was yesterday published by the Kremlin’s press-service.
Dmitry Medvedev stressed that talks about concluding a new partnership and cooperation agreement can be launched in Khanty-Mansiysk. “I hope we can set progress in motion on the most complicated problem that has come up of late – drafting a new basic agreement between Russia and the European Union,” he stated. The President’s confidence in a start of negotiations has its grounds. Short before the beginning of the summit Lithuania lifted its veto on conducting talks. Besides, Germany and France promised to assist Moscow (Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has already gave an enlightening talk as he met with Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris this May).
The Russian President shared his view of the new draft. “This must be a serious document that is at the same time not burdened down with specifics. It is more of a framework,” said Dmitry Medvedev. The President, though, didn’t mention which specifics mustn’t burden down the agreement. Moscow has always considered the Energy Charta – a document the EU wishes to sign – a major obstacle. For example, Vice-president of the European Parliament Marek Siwiec told Kommersant that the signing of the Charta must be one of the key terms of concluding a new treaty.
Apart from the Energy Charta disputes, some of the EU countries’ (the three Baltic states and Poland) desire to lay down their own conditions can become another hindrance. For instance, as Lithuania announced that it no longer blocked the talks with Moscow, Brussels had to give it guarantees that the new document will consider Vilnius’ demands to resume carbohydrates supplies via the Druzhba oil pipeline and to adopt a declaration about legal cooperation with the Russian federation and the EU member-states. Moreover, Vilnius called on Moscow to repair damages to those deported from the Baltic countries during the “Soviet occupation.”
The Kremlin is aware of this problem. In his interview to Reuters Dmitry Medvedev complained that “Euro-solidarity often makes it difficult for the mechanisms of the EU itself to function” in particular regarding its relations with Russia. At the same time Moscow is preparing a relevant answer to the demands of the Baltic states. The President’s Aid Sergey Prihodko said ahead of the summit, “The occasion will be used for quite a serious discussion of such issues as attempts to overhaul history and the state of Russian-speaking citizens in the Baltic countries.”
More to the point, thrashing out frozen conflicts, which the EU has urged, can also spoil the moods of the summit’s hosts. It concerns the situation in Abkhazia mostly. Yesterday’s visit of Mikhail Saakashvili to Berlin showed that the leading EU countries share the approach of Tbilisi, rather than that of Moscow. In response, Russia, according to Sergey Prihodko, intends to draw the partners’ attention to “a careful attitude towards the existing negotiating and peace-keeping formats.” Besides, Moscow will remind the EU that the citizens of breakaway republics must have the right “to take advantage of social and economic mechanisms.” This said, Russia aims to assert the orders about establishing special relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Vladimir Putin gave in April.
Finally, the parties will touch upon security matters, in particular the deployment of American AMD systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as well as NATO’s expansion to the East. Sergey Prihodko emphasized that Russia will advance Dmitry Medvedev’s conception about creating a common security space in Europe and signing a corresponding treaty.
To conclude with, Dmitry Medvedev’s debut summit is likely to be complicated regardless of the long-awaited start of the talks about a new agreement. By the way, Moscow doesn’t expect the treaty to be signed soon. A high-ranking official with the Russian Foreign Ministry told Kommersant that “the agreement can be concluded in a year or two at best.”
Alexander Gabuev
All the Article in Russian as of June 26, 2008
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