Natalya Polyakova
WHATEVER MAY HAPPEN IN THE RELATIONS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION, MOSCOW AND BRUSSELS HAVE NEVER STRAYED FROM THE ESTABLISHED FORMAT OF BILATERAL COOPERATION. RUSSIA-EU SUMMITS WERE HELD AT THE HEIGHT OF TRADE WARS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND SOME EU MEMBERS AND AFTER TRAGIC EVENTS SUCH AS THE WAR IN GEORGIA. THIS IS A WELCOME PHENOMENON IF ONLY BECAUSE TWICE A YEAR, BOTH SIDES HAVE A CHANCE TO TELL EACH OTHER WHAT THEY THINK.
Russia-EU summits held under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement that came into effect in 1997 are arguably the main forums for top-level reviews of the whole range of relations between Moscow and Brussels. Many European bureaucrats like to stress that Russia, which is the European Union's third biggest trading partner after the U.S. and China, has two summits a year with the EU, whereas Washington and Beijing have only one.
According to protocol, the spring Russia-EU summits are held on Russian territory while the autumn summit is hosted by the country that holds the European Union presidency. Until 2003, Moscow was the venue of the spring session. But in 2003, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin broke the tradition and decided to hold the summit in his native St Petersburg, which marked its 300th anniversary that year. In the following years, apparently seeking to diversify the geography of meetings in Russia, the Kremlin organised its summits with the European Union in Sochi (2006), Samara (2007), and even in Khanty-Mansiisk (2008).
The early Russia-EU summits, the first of which was held in Birmingham in May 1998, were largely formal occasions. Moscow and Brussels passed "the parties agreed to agree" types of declarations and paid much attention to the problem of Chechnya. Because of the human rights situation in that republic, Europe delayed the ratification of the partnership and cooperation agreement, which was signed in 1994, by three years.
In the early 2000s, many in Europe believed that with Mr Putin in the Kremlin, Russia would cope with the consequences of the chaos of the late 1990s and embark on the path of democracy. However, by about 2003, the atmosphere in the relations between Russia and the EU ceased to be one of guarded optimism. European Union countries openly criticised Moscow and Moscow presented counterclaims to Europe. The Rome summit in the autumn of 2003, hosted by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, saw Russia's European partners raise the issue of the negative consequences of the Yukos case for the development of bilateral relations.
The following year, when 10 new members joined the European Union, the wariness with regard to Russia increased, highlighted by calls from some European politicians equating Russia's status as EU partner with that of North African countries close to Europe. These sentiments were mainly fueled by the new members of the European Union, such as Poland and the Baltic states.
However, old Europe also had some bones to pick with Moscow. The Hague summit held in late 2004 listed among Europe's concerns Russia's recognition of the results of the referendum in Belarus and the abolition of direct elections of governors in Russia. Moscow countered by demanding the extradition of Akhmed Zakayev.
A year later, the 16th summit, held in London in the autumn of 2005, saw European leaders express fears about excessive dependence on Russian energy supplies. Moscow had just announced plans to build the Nord Stream pipeline. Six months later, in May of 2006, the issue of energy security, fueled by Gazprom's cuts of gas supply to Ukraine over the New Year, was the central theme of the Russia-EU summit in Sochi. However, the parties not only argued and criticised each other, but managed to pass concrete decisions, such as agreements on relaxing the visa regime between the parties and on readmission that were signed in Sochi and took effect a year later.
The next summit, held in Helsinki in the autumn of 2006, was unanimously seen by observers as a test of the European Union's solidarity. Poland had vetoed the start of the negotiations on a new partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia, demanding that Moscow lift restrictions on the import of Polish beef and ratify the European Energy Charter. Adding fuel to the fire of mutual mistrust were two high-profile assassinations that occurred shortly before the summit: on October 7, 2006, Mr Putin‘s birthday, journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered, and in November of that year, a former FSB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned in London. The West believed Russian authorities had a hand in these crimes.
In May 2007, opening the summit in Samara (perhaps the only summit not attended by the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, who on that day was receiving the Charles the Great award in Germany), Russian President Putin said he was looking forward to a "frank conversation without taboo topics". Moscow raised the problem of the deployment of American missile defence elements in Eastern Europe and discussed the situation over the movement of the Bronze Soldier monument in Tallinn. The key issue, of course, was the preparation of a new partnership and cooperation agreement, which was expiring that year. The parties however, adopted no documents.
By the time of the jubilee 20th summit in Portugal in 2007, so many problems had piled up in Russia-European Union relations that there was even talk in Brussels on the eve of the event that it would be canceled but for the long-standing tradition of holding such meetings twice a year. A year later, Poland still had not retracted its veto on the start of negotiations on PCA and Moscow's relations with the Baltic countries were at a low ebb. Clearly, talk about a new agreement was irrelevant. As a result, the main topics at the summit were Kosovo, Georgia, and Moldova. From the outset, it was clear that the chances of the parties reaching an agreement were nil.
The June 2008 summit in Khanty-Mansiisk was for the first time hosted by new President Dmitry Medvedev. "In some ways, the choice of this region as the venue for our meeting has turned out to be symbolic against the background of growing energy problems across the world. It is here that the energy rivers are formed which then flow to Europe," Mr Medvedev said, opening the summit as if to remind Europe why it should be friends with Russia. The Europeans got the message: the summer summit delivered what was in fact a breakthrough, kick-starting the negotiations on a new partnership and cooperation agreement after a year and a half of dawdling. The joy was short-lived, however, because the EU suspended negotiations with Russia after the war in Georgia.
The green light for resuming talks was given only days before the latest Russia-EU summit in Nice. Moscow reciprocated by indicating to Brussels that it may withdraw its plan to station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if the US did not deploy elements of its missile defence in the Czech Republic and Poland. However, with the financial crisis likely to preoccupy the world in the near future, the signing of the new framework agreement between Moscow and Brussels may take years.