Brussels, 04/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - It appears increasingly unlikely that negotiations on the new partnership agreement with Moscow will be relaunched, as sought by the French presidency and a majority of member states, during the EU/Russia summit on 14 November in Nice, which the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, will be attending. Several member states: Lithuania and Poland at the head of them - appear determined to create a block at the “General Affairs/External Relations” Council next Monday (10 November) on continuing talks, just as they did at the last Council in October (EUROPE 9760). The question will be on the Coreper agenda on Thursday 6 November.
The presidents of Lithuania and Poland, Valdas Adamkus and Lech Kaczynski published a joint declaration on Monday 3 November, in which they reaffirm loudly and clearly that Russia has not respected its commitment to withdraw to positions in Georgia they held before the conflict broke out and therefore it is “too early” to continue negotiations on the new agreement. Lithuanian diplomats confirmed to EUROPE that their country did not want to continue negotiations unless Russia withdrew its troops to the positions it occupied before 7 August (the beginning of the war in Georgia). Vilnius is sticking closely to the conclusions made by the Special European Council on 1 September, when the 27 European leaders decided to postpone the next negotiating session until Russian troops were withdrawn “to positions they held prior to 7 August”. In the meantime, Russia has withdrawn soldiers from security zones adjacent to Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia but it is keeping several thousand soldiers in the two regions that proclaimed independence (in which is has had a presence since before 7 August but with just a reduced number of their soldiers in the UN peace keeping force). Lithuanian diplomats explain that the Russian military presence in Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia should therefore be reduced to the number of “peacekeepers” Moscow had in the two regions before 7 August). The same diplomats affirm that, “if Russia does not respect its commitment to withdraw, we propose waiting until the European Spring Council (in March 2009) to return to the question and reconsider the situation”. This further postponement of several months should be used for a thorough analysis of EU/Russia relations and to “reflect” on their future, assert the Lithuanian diplomats. Poland affirms that the President's declaration does not formally commit the Polish government, even if, overall, the latter shares to a broad extent the opinion expressed by Mr Kaczynski.
The president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, also exclaimed on 3 November, in an interview with the Spiegel-online (Germany), that the EU was going too fast in re-establishing normal relations with Moscow. Mr Ilves declared that, “part of the European Union would, as soon as possible, like to make out that nothing happened at all”. The Estonian president is also severely critical of the EU's lack of ambition with regard to its Eastern neighbours, notably Ukraine, Georgia and Moldavia. Ilves affirms that by refusing to offer these countries real accession prospects and getting rid of visas and opening up the markets, the EU is becoming “complicit” with Russia in is policy to re-establish “zones of influence” in Europe. (H.B./trans/rh)