New EU-Russia treaty to deepen security and energy ties
10.03.2006 – 17:40 CET | By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A new EU-Russia treaty in 2007 is set to
bestrong on joint crisis management, with EU reliance on Russian
energy to grow.

“We might be actually acting side by side in far away places, like
Sudan, under UN auspices,” Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir
Chizhov, said in an interview with EUobserver on Thursday (9 March).

“Whether one likes it or not, in the mid-term perspective, that is in
the next 15 to 30 years, the percentage of EU demand covered by
supplies from Russia will grow,” he indicated.

Mr Chizhov dubbed the new legal pact a “Strategic Partnership Treaty
(SPT)” envisaging a slim framework document backed up by
action-oriented instruments.

“The issue at stake is not a new energy treaty…but a new treaty that
would summarise Russia-EU relations and this can replace the existing
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement [PCA].”

The PCA was drafted in the 1980s between the then European Community
and Soviet Union; it came into force in 1997 and will expire in
December 2007.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will fly to Moscow
on 17 March to kick-start the treaty talks with negotiations beginning
“in earnest” in autumn.

“The commission doesn’t have a mandate to negotiate a new
agreement. We understand that the intention is to draft such a mandate
and present it to [member states] before the summer break,” Mr Chizhov
said.

Ukraine gas crisis boosts pipeline plans

The Ukraine gas crisis in January reinforced Russia’s plans to build a
Baltic Sea gas pipeline to Germany as well as Austria’s push to build
the Nabucco gas pipeline to the Caspian basin, the ambassador
indicated.

“The silver lining behind this Ukrainian hiccup is that today nobody
questions the need for additional pipelines, including the North
European gas pipeline.”

Poland still hates the Baltic pipeline, he explained “but today they
are the only ones. There are countries that initially hated the idea
but now they hate the idea of being left out of it.”

Western diplomats believe Nabucco will give the EU leverage in gas
talks with Russia, yielding a new supply route out of Gazprom’s hands.

But “at least some” of the gas flowing through Nabucco will be
Russian, Mr Chizhov predicted, adding “If one wants to play one
country against another in terms of gas supplies that does not
increase stability, that does not increase energy security.”

“It [the EU] is free to choose cheap energy from Russia or more
expensive energy from elsewhere,” he said.

Joint missions in Nagorno-Karabakh

EU and Russian soldiers could also do peacekeeping work in the
breakaway Azerbaijan region of Nagorno-Karabakh in line with the new
crisis management agenda, Mr Chizhov indicated.

“It could only be a solution providing post-solution peacekeeping, not
classic peacekeeping. Because neither the EU nor Russia want to get
involved until there is an agreement on the ground.”

Russia has already sent a few policemen to join the EU police mission
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and offered helicopters to help put out
French forest fires in 2005.

But it would be difficult for Russia to work with the EU on the
Bosnian model, with Russia as a “junior partner,” in post-Soviet
countries, Mr Chizhov said.

EU-Russian crisis work has also been frustrated by Brussels red tape
in the past.

The Bosnian police agreement took one year to write and the last two
months were spent in “endless discussions” on whether it should be in
English only or English and Russian.

“Our partners on the EU side of the table said, since Russian is not
an official language of the EU, you can’t have it. This is stupid.”

Russian helicopters were ready to take off in 24 hours to help France
but it took seven days to get overflight clearance from EU transit
states.

“In the meantime all the forests burned down,” the ambassador
indicated. “Today the EU lacks a coordinated system of civilian
emergency response.”

EU brightness versus Russian darkness

Some aspects of EU diplomacy are unhelpful in managing relations
between the two powers in the post-Soviet region, Mr Chizhov remarked.

“There are people unfortunately here [in Brussels] who want to pose
artificial dilemmas facing these countries,” he said. “The dilemma
being – it’s either forward to the bright future with the EU or
backwards into the darkness with Russia.”

“We are being pragmatic, we understand that whatever any of these
countries wishes is not going to happen today or tomorrow or in the
foreseeable future,” the diplomat stated.

“But they are free to express their wishes, to dream about their
future EU membership.”

© EUobserver.com 2006
Printed from EUobserver.com 11.03.2006