Brussels, 28/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - Russia has announced that it has "withdrawn" its signature from the agreement on the terrestrial and maritime borders which it signed with Estonia on 18 May. "As the Estonian side has not fulfilled its obligations, we are withdrawing our signature from this agreement", said the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Monday. This means that there will be no Russian ratification of the agreement signed on 18 May (and which has just been ratified by Estonia), and therefore negotiations will have to start again from scratch, said the head of Russian diplomacy. According to Moscow, the bill on the ratification as adopted by the Estonian parliament contains "unacceptable points (...), which do not correspond to reality (...) and denude the work of many years of all sense". The Russians object mainly to a preamble to the text, added by the Estonians and which refers to resolutions adopted 15 years ago by the Tallinn parliament, which state that Estonia "was a victim of the aggression of the Soviet Union" and was "illegally incorporated". On a visit to Helsinki on Monday, Mr Lavrov called on the EU to adopt an "objective attitude" on this issue. "Estonia has done precisely what we asked it not to do, which is not to burden the cross-border treaty with political statements, of any nature", said Mr Lavrov. The Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip regretted "this astonishing decision", and refuted all Russian allegations.
On Tuesday, EU diplomats stressed that the ratification of the Russia/Estonia border agreement was a "key objective" of the European Union, given that this is one of its external borders. "On the basis of the information available to us today, we can see no reason or justification for the withdrawal of the Russian signature", they explained to EUROPE. The diplomats also pointed out that the ratification of border agreements with Estonia and Latvia (an agreement which has not even been signed yet) is part of the roadmap adopted by the EU/Russia Summit of 10 May with a view to the implementation of the common area of "Liberty/Security/Justice". The spokesperson to Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner (External Relations) said on Tuesday that the Commission would follow developments on the dossier very closely. "It is very important for us that this agreement is signed and ratified", she said, but stressed the fact that the Commission has only a "limited role" to play in the process as regards the Russian side.