The foreign ministers, who are meeting in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday together with EU defence ministers in a 'jumbo GAERC' (general affairs and external relations meeting), did not manage to reach a unanimous position ahead of the EU-Russia summit in Nice on 14 November. The only country to remain opposed to the resumption of talks was Lithuania.
Nevertheless, the talks with Russia will proceed, since legally, the Council meeting did not require unanimity to restart the EU-Russia talks. As Sarkozy recently said (EurActiv 22/10/08), the 1 September decision was not to suspend talks but postpone them.
Despite this, in view of the political importance of the matter, the Commission and the Council had made huge efforts to make a unanimous decision. Several countries, including Poland, agreed with the view that negotiating with Russia was the best way to defend EU interests.
Even for countries supportive of the resumption of EU-Russia talks, the decision to bypass the opinion of a small member country left a bitter aftertaste. Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Kubis told EurActiv that if a larger country had opposed the decision, things would "probably" have been "different".
Representatives of the EU institutions played down the political implications of the decision. On behalf of the Council, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said "dialogue with Russia must continue," but insisted that the Union was not neglecting the fact that Russia had modified Georgia's borders by allowing the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to declare independence unilaterally.
External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said a date would be found to proceed with negotiations after the 14 November EU-Russia summit in Nice and the second round of the Geneva talks on post-crisis settlement in Georgia, due on 18 November.
"This does not mean that we are giving a gift to Russia and this does not mean that we are changing our very firm position on the events of the summer. Russia's action over Georgia remains unacceptable," Ferrero-Waldner said.
