The decision has been made, but the course and outcome of the talks are more difficult to predict. EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who took part in the summit, believes that the talks will be long and difficult. To use popular sports jargon, the talks will be similar to steeplechase without any definite distance, start, or finish.
Neither partner has an adequate alternative to a new agreement. Both equally need a legal document that will reflect the tremendous political and economic changes in Russia, the EU, and the world. Success, however, will depend on political will and a readiness to compromise, and so far neither side has been prepared to meet the other halfway. Possibly the official statement on the start of the talks signals a readiness to do so. At any rate, it is a good sign that the first round of the talks will start on July 4, just a week after the summit.
Apparently the Europeans have accepted the Russian president's proposal for a lightly detailed framework document, leaving room for individual areas of cooperation to be specified in subsequent agreements.
Some of these areas have already been mentioned in Moscow and Brussels, for instance energy cooperation, science and technology, trade and investment (after Russia's WTO entry), and visa-free travel. Some specific agreements may be drafted alongside the basic document, but on the whole a package of such agreements is expect to be the next stage in the formation of a new political and legal foundation for a Russia-EU strategic partnership.
Three particularly contentious issues are likely to complicate the talks. First, in the last few years EU countries and their institutions have become increasingly concerned by elements of Russia's domestic policy that they see as contrary to the PCA's basic values. Opposition parties and human rights groups in Russia have a similar view of their government's actions. The Russian delegation's position on this is likely to be based on an approach recently formulated by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said that Russia has embarked on radical peaceful reforms and will develop universal democratic values but in its own way, with due respect for its centuries-long traditions rather than under outside pressure.
Both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his predecessor Vladimir Putin support an open and public dialogue between Russia and the EU on these problems. However, Moscow does not want its cooperation with the EU to depend on the latter's assessment of the complicated and sometimes contradictory development of civil society and democratic institutions in Russia.
The second point of tension concerns the formation of a common energy market, and provision of equal energy security guarantees in Europe. At the moment Brussels and Moscow's respective energy strategies are mutually exclusive. This situation is further aggravated by a lack of consensus within the EU itself. Many EU countries, including Germany, France, and Italy, oppose the strategy suggested by the European Commission. The author of this article is not an expert on energy, but it seems sensible to seal in the new agreement an equal right of producers and consumers to diversify their gas and oil exports, and transit routes. This would promote a rapprochement of the European and Russian positions.
The third clash of interests will come over the CIS countries in Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus. In effect, the EU and Russia are competing for economic and political influence in these regions. If that were not enough, they are also divided on the domestic situation in Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, and hold deeply opposing views on the best ways of settling the "frozen conflicts" in Transdnestr in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorny Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Participants in the summit have agreed to preserve the current format of settlement for the "frozen conflicts." That is reason for optimism. On the whole, the summit in Khanty-Mansiisk seems to have been the most fruitful Russia-EU meeting in the last three years. The first round of the talks in Brussels will confirm or disprove this assessment.
Prof. Yury Borko is chief researcher at the Institute of Europe.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
