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Post an EU jobAt their informal summit in Paris on 18 March, the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Spain will discuss ways to bolster EU-Russia ties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is due in Paris on 18 March for an informal summit meeting with his host and French counterpart, Jacques Chirac. The dinner at the Elysée Palace will also be attended by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. This is the first time that the leaders of the four countries have met in a summit format.
The primary aim of the meeting - which will begin with separate talks between Putin and Chirac - is to restore a climate of confidence and also for the three Western leaders to extend a friendly hand to Putin. The Elysée has emphasised that the other European leaders should not feel slighted by the format of the summit, arguing that it is in the interests of all EU member states to have all potential channels of communication open and functional.
The agenda of the meeting will be comprehensive, covering a broad range of global, bi- and multilateral issues. However, no major breakthrough is expected in any of the areas. Alongside the thorny developments in Chechnya, other global hot-spots such as Iraq, Iran and Syria will also be reviewed at the dinner table.
Russia's alleged "backsliding on democracy", which was one of US President George Bush's major points during his recent summit with Putin in Bratislava, is also expected to be discussed, although any Western criticism that is voiced is likely to be muted and mild.
One of Putin's main aims is to win a commitment from the three leaders to attend the World War Two victory celebrations in Moscow on 9 May. Participation in the celebrations has already been rejected by Estonia and Lithuania.
The summit is likely to be viewed critically by the Baltic states and Poland. These countries have been opposed to the recent efforts by France and Germany to strengthen EU-Russia ties.
The EU aims to conclude talks with Russia on the so-called four 'common spaces' by 2007. This package covers the economy, justice and internal security, external security and education and culture. Within that framework, the summit discussions will also cover trade and economic contacts and the prospects of high-tech partnership.
The Elysée has said that the purpose of the summit is to "hold out the hand of friendship to Putin to encourage him down the road of political and economic reforms".
"The only way forward here will be private diplomacy making it clear to Putin that if he continues going down the road towards autocracy and away from a market economy, any plans he might have had for deeper integration with Europe will have to be shelved," Katinka Barysch, chief economist of the London-based Centre for European Reform told Reuters.
The Russian news agency Novosti quoted Moscow parliamentarian Konstantin Kosachev as saying that "these talks are not biased against the Americans nor are they directed against other leaders of the European Union. It is not a fledging union but another form of interaction, which present-day Europe is lacking".
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