"We are all Europeans"

The gas conflict will not prevent Brussels from getting closer to Moscow

While the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe celebrated the agreement of the Russian delegation with European criticism on human rights issues in the North Caucasus , President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek summed up his two-day visit to Moscow, during which he had a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Jerzy Buzek's arrival in Moscow coincided with the gas confrontation that flared up between Russia and Belarus . So a meeting with Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko was urgently added to the schedule of his visit, due to which Mr. Buzek arrived at his own press conference almost forty minutes late. But for Europe, which suffered greatly from a similar conflict between Russia and Ukraine in January 2009, it was extremely important to obtain guarantees of uninterrupted gas supplies.

“The European Union proceeds from existing agreements on energy fuel supplies. We intend to continue to follow this principle,” he explained his vision of the situation. European structures obviously expect that the conflict will not last long and will not cause any harm to their consumers. Therefore, so far no harsh statements have been made to anyone. “Brussels welcomes Russia’s open approach to solving existing problems. This responsible approach was already demonstrated by Moscow in January 2009 during the gas crisis with Ukraine,” said the head of the European Parliament. Perhaps at that moment he did not yet know that Minsk had begun selecting transit gas going to Europe.

Taking this opportunity, Mr. Buzek recalled that it would be great if Russia joined the Energy Charter. Let us remind you that the Russian authorities consider this document outdated and irrelevant. A year ago, President Dmitry Medvedev took the initiative to sign a new comprehensive agreement on energy security, but so far this initiative has not received widespread support.

Jerzy Buzek, the former prime minister of Poland, became the first representative of the former socialist bloc to be elected to this post. Therefore, he additionally had to answer that, in his opinion, the gas conflict would not affect the results of the presidential elections in his native Poland.

The current topic of the latest gas scandal has not overshadowed other issues of bilateral relations. “We are all Europeans - both Russians and countries - members of the European Union,” he is convinced. “The main issues that I discussed with representatives of the Russian authorities were energy security, climate change, civil and human rights, how to respond to investigations of the most complex cases,” he listed.

During these two days, Mr. Buzek held meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev, the heads of both houses of parliament Sergei Mironov and Boris Gryzlov, and the leader of the Duma faction “A Just Russia” Nikolai Levichev. He devoted the evening to dinner with representatives of Russian human rights organizations. Although he raised the topic of protecting human rights at every event. “Anna Politkovskaya, the Khodorkovsky case, human rights in the North Caucasus, the insecurity of lawyers and witnesses in high-profile trials - this worries us very much. We want to have good bilateral relations, and for this it is important to talk about all problems,” he explained.

However, the Russian side was more interested in something else. For example, the prospects for introducing a visa-free regime. Sergei Mironov reminded the guest that negotiations on this issue have been going on since 2003 and it is time to get them off the ground. As you know, following the Russia-EU summit in Rostov-on-Don, Dmitry Medvedev said that nothing prevents Russia from canceling the visa regime for the EU “even tomorrow.” It turned out that Mr. Buzek himself thinks the same. “I am optimistic about this prospect. I'm sure all 27 EU members must agree to this, and they will,” he said.

Vera SITNINA