Brussels, 23/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - The EU may repeat that the Eastern Partnership is “not directed against Russia” (as Karel Schwarzenberg said at a conference last week in Brussels, see EUROPE 9865), but Moscow views things differently. In setting up the Eastern Partnership with its six eastern neighbours (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus), the EU is trying to “expand its sphere of influence”, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “We are accused of having spheres of influence. But what is the Eastern Partnership, if not an attempt to extend the EU's sphere of influence, including to Belarus,” Lavrov said at a conference in Brussels on Saturday 21 March. He also criticised the EU for exerting pressure on President Lukashenko in Minsk to get him to give up on recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, or see his country further isolated. “Is it threatening, is it blackmail or is it democracy at work?” he wondered, before answering his own question: the EU was forcing “sovereign states” to give up their positions under threat of a brake being put on their relations. Sweden, which, along with Poland, suggested the Eastern Partnership, and which will hold the Presidency of the EU in the second half of this year, vigorously refuted the Russian criticism. Lavrov's comments were “completely unacceptable”, said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, quoted by the EUobserver. “The Eastern Partnership is not about spheres of influence. The difference is that these countries themselves opted to join” the policy, Bildt said. (H.B./transl.rt)