BRUSSELS, May 11 (RIA Novosti) - The European Parliament defended Estonia in a diplomatic spat with Russia over a World War II monument and urged Moscow to respect democratic values ahead of a Russia-EU summit next week.

The parliament's press service said European MPs adopted a resolution to the effect in the runup to the Russia-EU summit in Samara on the Volga River May 17-18. The resolution called on all 27 EU nations to "demonstrate solidarity with Estonia and speak with one voice in the context of recent events in Tallinn."

The decision of Estonia, an EU member since 2004, to remove the monument to a Soviet WWII soldier to the outskirts of Tallinn and exhume the remains of the soldiers buried underneath sparked violent protests by ethnic Russians in Tallinn and near the Estonian Embassy in Moscow. One person was killed and hundreds arrested in clashes with police in the Estonian capital.

Yatsek Sariush-Volsky, head of the European Parliament's committee on foreign affairs, said the EU was an organization based on solidarity where all nations rose to defend one, and added that Estonia was the country to be defended this time.

Apart from tensions with Estonia, relations between Russia and the EU have staggered over a discord with Poland on Moscow's meat ban, which blocked talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between Moscow and Brussels to replace the current pact expiring in late 2007.

Vasily Likhachyov, deputy chairman of the international affairs committee in the Russian upper house, said Russia-EU tensions had entered an international level, unlike before when the major sore points were the situation in Chechnya, extradition of a Chechen emissary wanted in Russia as a warlord, and the status of the Kaliningrad Region, a Russian exclave in Europe.

"Today's problems have grown out of the Russia-Poland and Russia-Estonia scope," Likhachyov said. "Russia is now an ideological, information and psychological target."

But he added that the political obstacles did not hamper trade between Moscow and Brussels. "Russia and the EU have strong economic ties, and trade reached a record of $231 billion in 2006," he said, adding that Russia was the top gas supplier for the EU and the second leading exporter of oil derivatives. "Plus, we cover 17% of Europe's coal needs," he said.