STOCKHOLM, November 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Stockholm on Tuesday and met with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said Medvedev's working visit to Sweden began with an unofficial dinner with Reinfeldt, with the two leaders holding bilateral talks ahead of the EU-Russia summit scheduled for Wednesday morning.
"The president and the premier discussed Russian-Swedish relations, bilateral economic cooperation as well as certain topics of the international agenda: Russia-EU interaction, Middle East settlement, Iran, Afghanistan," she said.
On Wednesday, King Charles XII will grant an audience to the Russian president.
Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko earlier said Russia welcomes EU reform. The EU reform treaty, called the Lisbon Treaty, now ratified by all 27 member states, will come into force on December 1.
"We hail the Swedish authorities' pragmatism and consistency, which we hope will ensure the effectiveness of both the bilateral meeting and the EU-Russia summit," Prikhodko said, adding the summit was taking place "at a critical point" when "ratification procedures of the Lisbon Treaty are being concluded."
Prikhodko said Russian and EU officials would focus on climate change, efforts to overcome the consequences of the global credit crunch and the issue of energy supplies to Europe.
Russia has called on the European Union to take steps, including financial ones, to prevent problems again arising in Russian natural gas transit via Ukraine to Europe. Russian gas supplies to Europe were halted in January over a debt dispute, leaving much of Europe short of energy.
Prikhodko also said that Moscow and Brussels had already held several rounds of talks on a new partnership and cooperation agreement. The current Russia-EU agreement expired in late 2007, but was automatically extended. In early October, the sixth round of talks on the new agreement took place in Brussels.
Medvedev is also expected to discuss with his European colleagues North Korea's nuclear problem, the situation in Pakistan, and the Cyprus and Kosovo issues. The agenda of talks will also include the issue of European security, Prikhodko said.
Medvedev proposed in the summer of 2008 setting up an organization ensuring peace in Europe, in which no state or organization would have a monopoly.
