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29th Mar 2024

Lithuania complicates French rapprochement with Russia

The French EU presidency on Thursday (6 November) failed to get Lithuania on board to restart EU-Russia treaty talks, despite a hard-hitting paper from the office of EU top diplomat Javier Solana that warned about the safety of EU monitors in Georgia.

At an EU ambassadors' debate in Brussels, France proposed EU foreign ministers should next week announce the resumption of negotiations and issue a communique condemning Russian non-compliance with Georgia peace accords.

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The proposal was good enough for Russia-critical states Sweden, the UK, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, which agreed that major EU security and financial interests outweigh the niceties of the Georgia conflict.

Talks on a fresh Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA) with Russia were frozen after it invaded Georgia.

Russia on 12 August agreed to pull back to lines preceding the war. But forces remain in the strategic Akhalgori and Kodori zones. Troop levels are building up inside Georgia's rebel-held Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions. And Moscow is denying access for OSCE monitors to South Ossetia.

"If you look at this issue, legally there is no reason to relaunch the talks. But political reality dictates that we need to communicate with Russia," an EU diplomat said.

Lithuania - with muted support from Poland - wants France to push for full compliance at an upcoming EU-Russia summit, however. It says the topic can be revisited at the December EU summit before a final decision next year.

"France and Germany are still dreaming of the Russia of the 1990s. Meanwhile, Russian tanks are parked in an EU neighbourhood country," a Lithuanian official said. "Something very serious is happening in the east. The Caucasus is becoming like the Balkans, where the EU did not wake up until it was too late."

Lithuania's opposition comes despite two heavyweight policy recommendations from the office of EU top diplomat Javier Solana and the European Commission.

Hard sell

The Solana paper - seen by EUobserver - says the EU needs Russian support on all major foreign policy problems including Iran, the Middle East, European frozen conflicts, counter-terrorism and non-proliferation of chemical and nuclear weapons.

"In these areas, where nothing can be achieved without - let alone against - Russia, [current] co-operation can be described as intensive and broadly constructive," the document, drafted on 5 November, states.

Echoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent statement that Russia has "privileged interests" in its old dominions, it explains that EU police missions are being "increasingly located in regions that are sensitive for Russia."

The paper also indicates that EU monitors in Georgia - over 200 men and women - could be put at risk if EU-Russia relations break down.

"It is assumed that ...Russian forces will not compromise the security of ESDP [European Security and Defence Policy] mission personnel but contribute positively to the security of the mission in areas where they are present," the text says.

A 16-page European Commission "working document" on EU-Russia relations also details the EU's energy security and financial interests.

The PCA treaty is designed to help European energy firms invest safely in Russia, to make sure gas exports do not dry up due to "insufficient upstream investment and ageing pipeline infrastructure."

EU-Russia trade in the first seven months of 2008 grew by €36.5 billion to €165.3 billion compared to the same period last year. "A very significant share" of Russia's €450 billion foreign currency reserve pile is in euros, making it "one of the largest holders of euro-denominated assets in the planet."

Thin blue line

With Franco-German realpolitik dominating the PCA debate, the European Commission is trying to allay fears of Russian resurgence in separate discussions on Poland's "Eastern Partnership" proposal.

The fledgling EU policy is designed to accelerate integration with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus, ring-fencing the post-Soviet states with a hint of potential future EU accession.

External relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner in internal talks on an upcoming Eastern Partnership "communication," said the blueprint should leave the question of accession perspectives open.

The commission is quietly shifting staff from existing jobs into a new Eastern Partnership unit. And ideas on moving the cell from the external relations department to the enlargement department after the June 2009 European elections are making the rounds in Brussels.

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