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EU-RUSSIA RELATIONS ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE EU-RUSSIA SUMMIT IN KHANTY-MANSIYSK
VLADIMIR CHIZHOV,
Permanent representative of Russia in the European Union, Moscow - Brussels
The summit in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk is the twenty first EU-Russia summit. The EU-Russia summits are held twice a year in turn – in Russia and in the EU member-state which holds the EU presidency.
The opening of negotiations on a new base agreement between Russia and the EU will be one of the main issues at the Khanty-Mansiysk summit. Russia has carried out all the necessary preparations for the discussion of a new agreement with the EU. My mandate of the head of the Russian delegation was approved by the government in November 2006. But the mandate of my European Commission negotiations partners was approved by the EU Council on May 26, 2008.
The problems, which did not make it possible to start the negotiations on a new agreement between Russia and the EU, are well-known. Those are Poland and Lithuania’s vetoes.
The opening of the negotiations in Khanty-Mansiysk is the first step. And the first round of the negotiations will take place in Brussels on July 4. The process will be rather long-term. It is clear that the process will entail some difficulties due to comprehensive nature of the future agreement and the issues that may arise.
For the time being the future agreement has no name. It cannot be called in the same way as the previous one – the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation. The preliminary name is the Treaty on Strategic Partnership.
I have never predicted how long negotiations will be held since this is the most harmful thing to negotiations processes.
As regards the potential problems, I would not anticipate them. It comes natural that they will happen. The EU and Russia differ with each other on many issues.
Some problems in our relations are quite objective. In a globalizing economy, Russia and the EU, as two important players, are partners and, at the same time, competitors.
Apart from that, there are serious problems within the EU. I am referring to both its enlargement and the future of the European integration process. We know what happened to the Lisbon Treaty on the EU Reform and what the outcome of the referendum in Ireland was. Of course, this will influence the EU dealing with the third countries including Russia.
One of the results of our cooperation is that recently we have started carrying on a dialogue on abolition of visas. It is expected to lead to visa-free travel.
The problems arose in the course of the implementation of the Agreement on Visa Simplifications. The both parties have the problems in processing of visa applications, and the Russian citizens have as many of them as our European partners.
Those difficulties occur because the Agreement on Visa Simplifications is a new document; Russia is the first country with which the EU reached such an agreement.
Besides the agreement on partnership and visa policy, the Kosovo issue will be discussed at the summit. If we are talking about recognition or non-recognition of unilateral proclamation of Kosovo’s independence, here the EU has no position. About a third of the EU member states did not recognize Kosovo’s independence. Some of them stated openly that they did not intend to do that at all.
Russia and the EU are at variance about the mission to assure the supremacy of law. We are not against the EU sharing responsibility for the Kosovo events. We would not oppose to the civil mission of the EU in Kosovo provided that this mission was established according to the international legal standards. Its mandate should be endorsed by the government of the country where the mission is located, namely, Serbia, and this should be approved by the resolution of the UN Security Council.
Today the only legal groundwork for the international presence in Kosovo is Resolution No.1244 in accordance with which two international missions have been sent to Kosovo – the military and civil ones (the latter is the UN mission). The UN mission has an indefinite mandate and can be shut down or reformatted only by the UN Security Council. Those are our differences.
At the summit the issue of the so-called “frozen conflicts” will be examined. The EU would like to take more active part in their settlement. Russia does not ignore this fact and is ready to discuss it but if this is not done to the detriment of the existing negotiations formats.
As for Nagorno-Karabakh, there is the OSCE Minsk group. It has the triple co-presidency. One of its co-presidents is the EU member state, France. In this context, the EU participates in this process.
I do not think that the energy issue in the EU-Russia relations is a disputed one. Undoubtedly, this subject is of current importance. This is because the energy issue is often on agenda of the global discussions. It is natural that Russia and the EU, where 25 of 27 countries are net consumers and net importers of the energy resources, are concerned about that (only Denmark and Great Britain have a positive energy balance). In addition, more and more energy is being consumed in the EU, that’s why our partners focus on supplying extra energy resources to the EU in proper time. This is one of the topics of our dialogue.
The material is based on Vladimir CHIZHOV’s address to the TV press conference Moscow-Brussels “Important Issues of the EU-Russia Relations on the Threshold of the EU-Russia Summit in Khanty-Mansiysk on June 26-27” organized bythe Russian Agency of International Information RIA Novosti on June 23, 2008.
June 25, 2008
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