Tag: Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced further isolation on the second day of a G8 summit today (18 June) as world leaders lined up to pressure him into toning down his support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June, said his country would not follow the mistakes of Europe that led to the eurozone crisis. In a wide-ranging interview he blamed the EU’s "mentality” for endangering the economy and the “moral basics of society”.

Time is short for Kyiv to make tangible reforms ahead of the November Vilnius summit, and in the meantime the EU-Ukraine relationship is “slowly running out of runway”, a high European Commission official told the European Parliament yesterday (5 June).

Ukraine is taking “active steps” to win the sympathy of Germany, the country most strongly opposed to the signature of a landmark association agreement with the EU in the absence of a solution to the imprisonment of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, diplomats told EurActiv.

Sweden has a long-standing policy of neutrality and nonalignment and has no ambition to join the eurozone. But the country may need to rethink its policy, writes Antonia Colibasanu.

It is possible that EU-Ukraine relations could take a negative turn in the coming months, writes Roman Rukomeda, a Ukrainian independent political expert.

Russia’s export monopoly Gazprom and the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell have signed a tentative deal to develop hydrocarbons in the Russian Arctic, Russian and Dutch media reported.

Gazprom Neft holds a 56% stake in NIS, the largest energy company in Serbia, but the company vows to do business “outside politics” and support the country’s EU integration, Kirill Kravchenko, CEO of NIS, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Crunch talks aimed at ending the ethnic partition of Serbia's former Kosovo province broke up without result early this morning (3 April), in a major setback for Serbia's hopes of starting EU membership negotiations this year.

Nabucco West and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the two companies competing for Azerbaijani gas projects, have issued simultaneous statements today (29 March) that they have submitted the final package supporting their bids. The Shah Deniz consortium will chose between the two in June.

The EU must take a new approach to cooperation with Russia, including partial membership in a free-trade zone, write Iris Kempe and Cornelius Ochmann.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is meeting Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Moscow today (21 March), slammed the EU for behaving "like a bull in a china shop" on the proposed Cyprus bailout. Meanwhile, a prominent Russian opposition leader said the Kremlin was conducting an operation to save its “dirty money” in Cyprus.

Leading MEPs confronted European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič yesterday (20 March), threatening to initiate a Parliamentary inquiry into the failed Cyprus bailout.

EU leaders concluded their two-day summit today (15 March) with an informal discussion on Russia, largely intended as a brainstorming session to prepare an EU visit to Moscow next week aimed at ‘exploring areas of mutual interest'. Much of the debate focused on energy, which EU leaders will discuss during a special summit on 24 May.

Nabucco West and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the two planned projects competing for Azeribaijani gas, have both signed agreements with the Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline (TANAP) between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych hinted that he might be ready to cede some control of his country's gas pipeline system that transports Russian gas to Europe ahead of a meeting today (4 March) with his Russian counterpart.

Ukraine's top diplomat in Brussels says his country rejects any kind of pre-conditions for the signature of its Association Agreement with the EU ahead of the leadership summit to be held on Monday.

Europeans are dismayed by Russia's recently-adopted recycling fee on car imports, arguing the measure is a protectionist law under the guise of environmental "recycling".

Prohibitive prices of cigarettes and alcohol encourage smuggling, according to participants at a recent conference in Warsaw on smuggling across the EU's eastern border. EurActiv Poland reports.

Moscow, which recently slammed Kyiv with a huge gas bill, said Monday (4 February) that an arrangement could be found. A Russian diplomat explained that the deal would not necessarily require Ukraine to join Moscow's proposed Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. 

The rise of independent gas producers in Russia marks a paradigm-shift for the domestic market, and could ultimately challenge Gazprom’s dominant position both at home and in the export markets, argues Danila Bochkarev.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has warned that Europe risks falling into a “no-man’s land” between the emerging east and the US and called for closer European links with Russia.

Russia could provide support to Cyprus but the island state itself and the European Union must take the biggest share of a bailout, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has told a German newspaper.