Putin visit may seal deal on Kaliningrad

Date: 07/11/02

By David Cronin

HOPES are high that the European Union will be able to settle its differences with Russia over its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad when President Vladimir Putin visits Brussels for a summit on Monday (11 November).

Diplomatic contacts between the two sides are due to intensify in the coming days as part of efforts to agree what travel restrictions would apply to Kaliningrad's 950,000 inhabitants once neighbouring Lithuania and Poland join the EU.

Sources say that Moscow has indicated a willingness to sign a deal - or agree the outline to one - on Monday.

The accord would be based on allowing people from Kaliningrad to travel to Russia by rail without a visa, while introducing a separate travel document regime for those who cross Kaliningrad's frontier by road.

However, EU diplomats emphasise that the precise details still have to be worked out.

Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen said this week that 'in essence the question [of Kaliningrad] has been resolved'.

'It seems to me that discussions between Russia and Lithuania have given rise to a solution,' he added.

Lithuania is the main transit route for Kaliningrad residents travelling to Russia.

According to Verheugen, the solution will focus on three points:

• recognising the 'territorial integrity' of the states affected;
• protection of the EU's external borders, and;
• the need to avoid 'unacceptable impediments' to travel between Kaliningrad and Russia.

Meanwhile, Bart Staes, the head of the EU-Russia parliamentary committee, called on the Union's summit team to push for peace talks between Moscow and the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

'The EU-Russia summits tend to deal with the humanitarian situation in Chechnya but not the political problems [surrounding the conflict],' said the Flemish MEP.

'The clear view of our delegation is that the EU should try to push the political part of the problem.'

While the Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer are among those who recently called for talks, EU diplomats concede privately that they are struggling to convince Russia about the importance of such negotiations.

Russia has argued that the Chechen government is not a viable negotiating partner due to its alleged links with rebels involved in last month's attack on a Moscow theatre.

EU officials say they are finding it difficult to counter that argument.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International last night criticised EU leaders for being 'very silent' since the Moscow hostage drama. Dick Oosting, head of the group's Brussels office, said the Union should put pressure on Russia to allow international monitors into Chechnya to study the human rights situation there.

'Chechnya was almost a forgotten war before the hostage drama,' Oosting remarked.

'It is also a dirty war, with civilians caught right in the middle.

'Rape, torture, disappearances and killings have all occurred.'

• François Lamoureux, head of the European Commission's energy department, was covered with cream by a protestor in Moscow this week.

He was attending the opening of an EU-sponsored technology centre in the capital, when a woman hurled a pie at him and Russian dignitaries.

The woman, who is reported to be a journalist with radical newspaper Limonka, shouted 'Kaliningrad was, is and will be Russian'.

Hopes are high that the European Union will be able to settle its differences with Russia over its Baltic territory of Kaliningrad when President Vladimir Putin visits Brussels for the EU-Russia summit, 11-12 November 2002.

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/app/newsroom/PressHome.aspx?id=221&lang=EN http://www.consilium.europa.eu/app/newsroom/PressHome.aspx?id=221&lang=EN

---