On Friday 14 September, Russia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov stretched out a hand to the Europeans, asking them to resume dialogue in order to be able "to build a common space of peace, security and economic cooperation in respect of the interests of all countries".
"Practically all channels of dialogue between Russia and the EU, and between Russia and NATO, have been broken off", he said at the Germany-Russia forum in Berlin, from which the verbatim report was sent to media on 19 September.
"We have somehow failed so far to sit down and figure out where our relations with the EU are as a whole. Summits have not been held since 2013; the Permanent Partnership Council (...) is not functioning, and the overwhelming majority of sectoral dialogues have been suspended as well", he said. In Lavrov's view, out of over 20 dialogues, only a handful are still continuing – notably that on migration.
Lavrov said that during his "occasional" meetings with High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini she was only interested in international issues, mainly Syria and Ukraine.
"If we do not start to cooperate normally at meetings, and discuss our issues and concerns, I think there will be little progress", he said, adding that without dialogue it would not be possible to dissipate the mistrust between the two parties. Lavrov said he was sure Russia and the EU were "bound to cooperate on a basic, substantial level", believing that the "past decade, to a large extent, has been a decade of lost opportunities", especially as regards visas and energy.
Lavrov also regretted that Russia is not able to exchange information on the movement of foreign terrorists around the world "including our common space, because the EU has not shown any interest or activity in completing the work on signing agreements between Russia and the Europol and between Russia and Eurojust". "Without these agreements it is impossible to exchange personal data under Russian and EU law", he said. He added that "this is an example of a most urgent problem, challenge and threat common to all of us, not attracting our special attention". "So we must sit down and start talking. We are ready for this", he said.
Lavrov said he thought the relations between the EU and Russia were "hostage" to the Ukrainian crisis – a crisis which, in his view, continues because of the policy of the Ukrainian authorities that "hamper the implementation of the Minsk agreements".
He also said the EU should assess the relevance of "the creation of a new model of economic cooperation in Eurasia, one based on the mutual complementarity of national growth strategies and the combined potential of multilateral economic projects". He stated that Russia had already begun "to pave the way in this direction", in cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)