Brussels, 03/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - Preparations for the 24 November 2006 EU-Russia Summit in Helsinki, the upcoming talks over a new partnership agreement, establishing roadmaps for the estalbishment of four 'common spaces' and international issues like Iran, North Korea, Georgia, Moldova, Kosovo, Cyprus and the Middle East were the focus of the meeting of foreign ministers for the Standing Council of the EU-Russia Partnership in Brussels on 3 November. At a press conference, the President of the Council of the EU, Erkki Tuomioja, who is Finland's foreign minister, said that the EU and Russia discovered they had 'quite common viewpoints' on most international issues.
Huge disagreement remains, however, in terms of how the Russian minorities living in Baltic States like Latvia and Estonia are treated. At a press conference, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia wanted human right and minority rights to be respected in Latvia and Estonia and for the two countries to observe OSCE and Council of Europe recommendations in this connection. Erkki Tuomioja reacted imeidatley, saying that as EU Member States, Estonia and Latvia clearly subscribed to all EU standards for the protection of human rights and minority right. Tuomioja recognised that there was 'still work to be done in integrating minorities' and that the EU and Russia had a different view of reality in the two Baltic States, saying that the EU saw the glass as half full, while Russia saw it as half empty. Lavrov retorted in the press room that he fully agreed that the naturalisation process for the Russian mintory had to be speeded up and people should be encouraged to integrate into society, but these are citizens who carry a paper saying that they are foreigners, non-citizens in the country they are living in. He added that at the current rate of integration in Latvia, it would take 50 years for the Russian-speaking minority to be integrated, and 28 years for the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia.
Russia also wants border problems with Latvia and Estonia to be settled, explained Lavrov, noting that Russia was prepared to sign border agreements with the two countries at any time as long as the two Baltic States returned to the non-political agreements initialled at their own request. The signing of the agreements was annulled last year following 'ambiguous political statements' about the past by the Latvian and Estonian parliaments, said Lavrov.
Sergey Lavrov said that these disagreements about the Baltic States cannot hide the fact that the European Union is a key partner for Russia in the economic domain above all, but increasingly so in politics and other areas of cooperation, like science and teaching. The roadmaps approved by the summit in May 2006 for the stalbishment of four common spaces (economy; freedom, security and justice; external security; education, research and culture) are the main insturmetns for extending EU-Russia cooperation, said Lavrov. He said that remarkable progress had been made in the different sectors, and hoped that the two recently initialled agreements on facilitating visas and readmission could be ratified before the end of the year so they could come into force early next year. The Russian foreign minister mentioned Russia's hope that in the long run, visa obligations would be scrapped. Earlier this wekk, at a meeting of the Standing Partnership Council at the level of justice and home affairs ministers, the EU and Russia reaffirmed their common desire to establish a framework for dialogue to examine the conditions for scrapping visa obligations in the long-term (see EUROPE 9297).
On the new EU-Russia agreement to be negotiated to replace the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement which expires at the end of 2007, Erkki Tuomioja said at the press conference that he was optimistic that the Member States would approve the EU's negotiating mandate before the 24 November Summit so talks with Russia could begin before the end of the year.
On Georgia, Lavrov said he hoped the country would 'do nothing more' to aggravate the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and that it would respect all agreements and Security Council resolutions (hb)