Translated material
This is not a gift
Europe will give Russia an audit
Today, participants in the two-day European Union summit in Brussels will continue discussing the pressing financial problems of the Old World. But European leaders cannot avoid the Russian issue either. Discussions on the relationship between Brussels and Moscow were held in two sessions - yesterday at the foreign ministers' lunch and this morning at the level of heads of state and government of 27 EU member countries. The future of the EU's relationship with Russia will be outlined in a separate section of the summit's final statement.The main problem remains the fate of the negotiations on concluding a new basic agreement between Russia and the EU. The decision to start them was made at the Russia-EU summit in Khanty-Mansiysk in June, but in August a conflict broke out in the Caucasus, complicating relations between Russia and the West. Participants in the previous EU summit on September 1 decided to suspend negotiations with Moscow until the withdrawal of Russian troops to the positions they occupied by August 7.
“The meaning of what happened after the Georgian conflict should be accurately conveyed,” said a European diplomat close to the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, in an interview with Vremya Novostey. “Negotiations with Russia on a new framework agreement were not “frozen,” as many Russian media interpreted the situation, but “postponed.” The only new detail is the requirement of a number of countries to conduct an audit of the main areas of relations between the European Union and Russia. But the so-called audit will be carried out in any case either before the next EU-Russia summit on November 14 in Nice, or after it, during the negotiations themselves on a new framework agreement. The negotiations themselves will last at least two to three years,” a source told VN.
Despite the ongoing disputes about Russia's fulfillment of its obligations in the Caucasus, started by the Anglo-Saxon wing of the EU, Brussels' general line seems to have already been announced the day before during the visit of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to the European Commission. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that “the signing of a new framework agreement with Russia is not a gift to Moscow.” After all, the transition to a new phase of relations between the European Union and Russia primarily meets the interests of the EU itself, its industry and, ultimately, the citizens of all 27 member countries.
The leadership of the European Union does not even “have a legal need to make a decision regarding the start of negotiations with Russia. Only France, as the chairman, can decide whether to directly begin negotiations,” Antonio Missiroli, a leading analyst at the Center for European Policy, told VN.
“The EU Council is 90% focused on the financial crisis,” Cameron Fraser, an expert at the Brussels-based EU-Russia think tank, confirmed to VN. “Georgia's problems are clearly not in the spotlight. Of course, a group of countries has emerged that will strive to convince Russia to return to the pre-war status quo, but even they do not intend to block anything. The resolution of Georgia’s problems largely depends on the negotiations in Geneva, from which no one expects immediate results,” the expert testifies.