EU ready to start partnership talks with Russia

EU foreign affairs ministers said they are prepared to open negotiations with Russia on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) at their next meeting on 28 April, after agreeing on the wording of the mandate at their informal meeting in Brdo on 28-29 March.

“Even if I am not expecting any major policy shifts, I think there is an opportunity which we should take to open a new chapter in our partnership with Russia,” External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after the meeting. 

She expressed her wish to move towards “a real partnership on an equal footing” with a very broad scope, with energy security and supply being the first priority, but also including issues such as migration, trade and security. 

British foreign minister David Milliband said that it was an “important moment” for EU relations with Russia, pointing out that the Union had moved on from “whether or not there should be a more strategic relationship [with Russia] to the nature of that strategic relationship”. 

Despite the agreement on the overall principles of the mandate, Lithuania upheld its reservations concerning the draft following Moscow’s decision to close the Druzhba-1 pipeline, which used to deliver Russian oil to the Lituanian Mazeikiai refinery. 

Lithuanian foreign minister Petras Vaitiekunas demanded that the final mandate request Russia to reopen the pipeline and relaunch its oil supply to the Mazeikiai refinery. However, he added that Lithuania would not block the opening of the talks. 

According to Ferrero-Waldner, this issue is no longer an “obstacle”, but rather a technical problem. 

Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, whose country had blocked the opening of talks until Russia lifted its embargo on Polish meat, said he was confident that the wording of the final mandate would mirror Lithuania’s concerns (EURACTIV 21/12/07). 

Sami Andoura from the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations said that the agreement reached was “a good starting point” from where to move forward. It showed that the EU had adopted “a more pragmatic approach” towards Russia. 

Talks on a new PCA have become necessary as the current PCA, which came into force on 1 December 1997, was concluded only for an initial duration of 10 years. The agreement is to be renewed automatically on an annual basis unless one of the sides withdraws from the agreement. 

Milliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner had presented a letter to the other EU ministers urging a united position for talks with Moscow in order to “quickly open discussions on a new PCA,” according to AFP. 

The letter also gave credit to the Russian President-elect Dmitri Medvedev, who will assume office from Vladimir Putin in May, and welcomed his support for promoting the rule of law in Russia. But it stressed that the EU “should judge Russia by her actions, not by her words”. 

Medvedev will chair the Russia-EU Summit for the first time in Siberia on 26-27 June. 

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