EU-Russia summit to ignore nuclear safety concerns
PHILIPPA RUNNER
14.11.2008 @ 09:28 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU concerns about Russia's nuclear safety and human rights standards will not get much attention in Nice on Friday (14 November), as French President Nicolas Sarkozy celebrates his role in ending the Georgia war.
Two internal documents on EU-Russia relations prepared by the European Commission and EU diplomats ahead of the summit point to mounting environmental concerns about Russia's defunct nuclear submarines and ageing power plants.
Here come the Russians: but a decrepit army and a tottering economy stand behind President Medvedev's ambitions (Photo: kremlin.ru)
"More than 200 nuclear reactors and some 20,000 spent fuel elements coming from dismantled submarines and icebreakers are stored in poor conditions," in north west Russia, the EU analysis paper - seen by EUobserver - says.
"Russia has prolonged the lifetime of its first generation nuclear reactors, some of which are of the Chernobyl type and close to the EU's border," it adds, noting that an EU-Russia nuclear safety group last met in 2005.
The EU has earmarked €40 million to help Russia control the spread of chemical weapons and fissile materials, including retraining some 30,000 weapons scientists at the International Science and Technology Centre in Moscow.
But Russia says the centre has already "fulfilled" its task, with financial contributions going down in 2008.
The EU also lists a multitude of human rights abuses including failure to comply with European Court of Human Rights rulings, obstruction of Red Cross workers and UN monitors in North Caucasus.
"Issues of concern in Russia include violence and harassment of human rights defenders and journalists," as well as "enforced disappearances" and the "possible re-emergence of punitive psychiatric treatment" against opposition activists.
"For a decade now the EU has said that its relationship with Russia is based on European values, but the EU hasn't always followed through," the Brussels director of Human Rights Watch, Lotte Leicht, said.
The agenda of the brief summit in the Palais Sarde in Nice's old town will see the French EU presidency hammer out a joint EU-Russia line on the financial crisis in a morning session, before turning to Georgia at lunch.
Mr Sarkozy wants Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to join the EU in pressing for greater regulation of global financial institutions 100 days after the G20 summit in Washington on Saturday.
Who won the war?
The French leader is to announce that EU-Russia talks on a new partnership treaty can restart later this month, despite the EU's own admission that Moscow has not yet fulfilled the 12 August Georgia peace accord.
"The short term priority now will be the full implementation of the [12 August] Six Point Plan," the EU's pre-summit analysis paper states.
Russian general Vladimir Komojedov on Thursday said Russia aims to station part of its Black Sea Fleet in Georgia's rebel-held port of Ochamchir in Abkhazia in future, cementing the de facto partition of the EU's little neighbour.
But the French president the same day showed pride in his part in the Georgia war, asking rhetorically during a media awards ceremony "When someone had to leave for Moscow or Tbilisi, who defended human rights? ...We were in Moscow and, as if by chance, the ceasefire was announced."
A pre-summit leak by Mr Sarkozy's top aide, Jean-David Levitte, to Le Nouvel Observateur also painted him as a muscular leader.
"I am going to hang [Georgian president] Saakashvili by the balls," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Mr Sarkozy in Moscow on 12 August, the leak recounts. "Hang him?" Mr Sarkozy replied. "Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," Putin said. "Yes, but do you want to end up like [outgoing US president] Bush?" the Frenchman replied, reportedly leaving Mr Putin lost for words.
Stealing toilets
For his part, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to use Nice to flesh out Moscow's vision of a Vancouver-to-Vladivostock security treaty to replace NATO.
But Mr Medvedev's posture as the head of a resurgent world power is undercut by the Sarkozy-Putin leak, indicating that Mr Putin is really in charge.
The financial turmoil has also shown the vulnerability of Russia's petro-based economy: Moscow's stock market has lost 75 percent of its value since May, with trading suspended on 29 occasions since September and with billions in capital fleeing the country.
Analysts forecast oil prices to stay below $50 per barrel next year. But Russia's 2009 budget is based on $95 a barrel, making it harder for Moscow to modernise its armed forces.
Last weekend's tragedy on the K-152 Nerpa submarine, which saw 20 Russian sailors suffocate due to outdated fire-fighting systems, points to the gap between Russia's security ambitions and the state of its army.
When Russian soldiers invaded Georgia in August, they stole NATO-paid boots and toilets from Georgian bases to take back home.
