After various informal events this evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks on Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the EU rotating presidency, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. The sides had hoped to discuss a new Russia-EU cooperation deal, but Poland's veto on the talks over Russia's meat embargo remains in force.
European diplomats have suggested that Russia does not want to draft a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, set to expire this year, with the 27-nation bloc, and may push for the existing agreement to be renewed.
Almost 500 journalists will cover the 30th Russia-EU summit to be staged at the Volzhsky Utyos health spa, famous in Russia for cardio therapy using mineral waters. The area around the resort is dubbed "Switzerland on the Volga."
The European Commission's official site says that as well as discussions on the "state of play" of the cooperation agreement, the summit agenda will address energy, climate change, Russia's WTO accession, and the coming into force of new visa facilitation and readmission agreements. Cooperation to resolve the frozen conflicts in the Caucasus and Transdnestr, a self-declared republic in ex-Soviet Moldova, will also be addressed.
The participants will also discuss international issues such as the possibility of independence for Kosovo, Iran's nuclear program, and Middle East conflicts.
The summit will be hosted by President Putin, accompanied by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. As well as Angela Merkel and Manuel Barroso, the EU will be represented by the bloc's foreign policy chief Javier Solana, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and External Relations and European Neighborhood Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Russian president's top adviser for relations with the EU, said Wednesday that although a new strategic cooperation deal with the EU would not be signed this year, Russia and the EU were not experiencing a crisis in their relations.
"Like Mark Twain who said 'rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,' we can say that reports of a crisis have been exaggerated, to put it mildly," said Yastrzhembsky.
Moscow's disputes with the three EU members - over a ban on Poland's meat, the removal of a Soviet war memorial from the center of Estonia's capital Tallinn, and Lithuania's demands that Russian oil supplies be resumed via the Druzhba pipeline - have overshadowed the upcoming summit. This prompted Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, the current EU president, to briefly visit Russia on Tuesday for talks with the president, in an attempt to defuse the situation.
Russia and the EU hold summits every six months. In the second half of the year the country presiding over the European Union traditionally hosts the summit, while Russia hosts the earlier summit.
Over the past seven years only two Russia-EU summits have been held outside Moscow. Russia's second-largest city St. Petersburg hosted the summit in 2003, the year of its tercentenary, and last year Russian and EU leaders convened at the Bocharov Ruchei presidential residence in Sochi, on the Black Sea.
The Kremlin Web site says 478 media representatives from Russia, the EU, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Japan, the United States, China and Iran have so far been accredited for the summit.
