Climate of Cold Stability
The Price of the Question
“Außer Spesen nichts gewesen,” the Germans say when they want to underscore an effort brought no results. It’s quite probable that German columnists will use this phrase to describe the EU-Russia summit in Portugal if they decide to comment on it after all. No one in Berlin or Brussels expects any groundbreaking decisions at the anniversary 20th summit of EU leaders and the Russian president.
Moscow apparently does not expect any breakthrough, either. The Russian president’s aides, for example, underscored before the summit that the forum is a working meeting. Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel’s talks in Wiesbaden gave a good example of that. Everything was really nice in Wiesbaden but brought no results whatsoever.
It is very unlikely that the leaders will find common ground on such crucial international issues as Kosovo and Iran’s nuclear program in two hours of official negotiations as there is not even a rough solution to the problems. Certain progress may be achieved in the U.S. anti-missile defiance in Poland and the Czech Republic. But this matter is a prerogative of Washington, not Brussels and let alone Lisbon which currently presides in the EU.
Agreements on broadening access to each other’s energy markets are also quite unlikely to be reached at the anniversary summit. The EU is considering getting energy corporations to split in smaller companies in a bid to counter monopolistic trends in the industry while Russia persistently bolsters positions of energy monopolists in the country. Directions of the sector’s development are completely opposite.
The main unresolved bilateral issue is talks on the new partnership treaty between the EU and Russia. Poland’s previous government were blocking talks as it saw political interests in Russia’s ban on Polish meat imports. Sunday’s parliamentary election in Poland has not yet put new authorities in power and nor has it changed Warsaw’s policies. In any case, the election’s results do not mean that Russia’s attitude to Polish meat is going to change. The EU supported Warsaw even when the country was ruled by overtly nationalist authorities who fell out with Brussels and Berlin in particular. So, why would the European Union’s traditional solidarity with its members dwindle now? All the more, the new Polish government is going to try to make amends with Western European partners.
The start of talks on the new agreement between the EU and Russia will again have to be put off for the time of parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia which may even worse the bilateral discussion on democracy norms and human rights.
The current state of EU-Russia relations can be describe as some sort of cold stability which seems to be getting colder. So, there isn’t much left to do but sigh and say: “Außer Spesen nichts gewesen.”
Andrey Gurkov, Deutsche Welle Russia's columnist
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 26, 2007
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