EU-Russia relations set to get ‘hotter’

By Dana Spinant

Date: 16/10/03

RUSSIA looks certain to become a hotter issue for the European Union due to the influence of the former communist countries who will join the Union next May, according to diplomats.

Evidence of this became clear at the meeting of EU foreign ministers - and their counterparts in the accession countries - at Luxembourg this week.

The upcoming EU-Russia summit in Moscow was a key subject at the meeting: five out of the six countries who took the floor on points that should be raised with Russia on 6 November were newcomers - Latvia, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Sweden was the only current member state to express its view on the summit agenda.

"The new countries spoke a lot about Russia," one Council of Ministers official said. "They expressed some concerns, in particular about the environment."

The official added that the dynamic of EU discussions on Russia is bound to change as eight of the newcomers are former Soviet satellite countries from central and eastern Europe.

"EU politicians have long expressed concerns about how the new states from the east would behave concerning Russia once they join [the Union]. They feared the eastern countries would show some antagonism concerning their former big brother. Today's [Monday's] discussion showed that Russia is indeed still a big preoccupation for them."

Chris Patten, the external relations commissioner, rejected the view that the newcomers will make debates on Russia more difficult. "We all benefit a greatdeal from the contribution of our new members to the discussions with Russia," he told this paper. "They make the discussion more informed and richer," Patten added.

During this week's talks, the Baltic countries insisted that environmental questions, such as maritime protection, would have to be raised with President Vladimir Putin in Rome.

Lithuania expressed concern about Russia's plans to drill for oil close to Vilnius' maritime frontier.

An official for the Italian presidency said that the situation in Chechnya and in Kaliningrad, two thorny issues in relations between EU and Moscow, was mentioned only briefly.

Putin has been regularly lambasted in the past for abuses of human rights by Russian troops in the separatist, mostly Muslim region, of Chechnya.

NGOs have expressed concerns that the presidential election on 5 October, in which pro-Moscow candidate Akhmad Kadyrov polled 81% of the vote, was not free and fair. Two of the early favourites withdrew from the contest: one was given as plum job as an advisor to Putin and the other was barred from running by the Chechen courts. Moreover, some 10,000 local police and 3,500 Russian soldiers provided "security" for the voters.

As for Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that will be surrounded by EU territory when the Union enlarges next May, Moscow is stepping up pressure on EU leaders to obtain visa-free travel arrangements for its citizens.

Putin pressed the case for a visa-free regime to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at Yekaterinburg last week.

Foreign ministers discussed Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) with Pascal Lamy, the European trade commissioner. Lamy warned that Russia would need to adapt to WTO rules if its application were to succeed.

The comment followed criticism from Putin of "Brussels bureaucrats not understanding the situation in Russia" when requiring him to end domestic subsidies for gas as a condition for joining the WTO.

Diplomats have warned that the accession to the European Union in May 2004 of new states from Eastern Europe could make relations between the European Union and Russia more fraught.