EU-Russia : sound and fury

Soviet propagandists could not have cooked up the circumstances surrounding this week's EU-Russia Summit in the western Siberian city of Khanty-Mansiisk. 

The summit begins on Thursday, less than two weeks after Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, plunging the EU into crisis. Challenging consultations with new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are considerably less important for EU leaders, who would probably rather be in Brussels contemplating the future of their organisation. Medvedev will find his negotiating position dramatically strengthened by the EU's discombobulation.  

Russian interests

The development of a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) -- a document to define the principles and practicalities of the EU-Russian relationship -- will provide an overriding framework for the meeting. The last PCA was signed in 1997 and expired last year, providing both sides with an imperative for reassessing their relations.  However, significant disagreements remain:  

• Securing Gazprom's interests.  Expansion into Europe is one of Gazprom's key strategic goals, according to its Chief Executive Aleksei Miller. Yet Gazprom's ambitions likely go beyond supplying Russian gas to European consumers.  It is interested in owning a stake in one or more EU energy companies, but could be thwarted by an 'unbundling' clause that would require firms to separate their gas delivery and electricity supply subsidiaries.  One provision in particular will alarm the Kremlin: Brussels is chewing over a regulation that requires other markets to allow reciprocal access to EU firms.  This will not sit well in Moscow, which is in the process of implementing a new law defining, and in some cases restricting, foreign investment. 
• Redefining European security.  Medvedev will use the EU-Russia Summit to champion his 'alternate vision' of European security -- a configuration in which Russia is a key pillar and NATO an ineffectual relic.  Medvedev first suggested this recalibration during his early June meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, but received a muted response.  He gave the speech again at a media forum in Moscow, and the proposal appeared to gain traction.  Expect Medvedev to return to this theme, one that could drive Moscow's foreign policy for the remainder of his presidency. 

EU criticism?

However, Moscow will also face EU criticism of its challenging relationship with Georgia and tarnished human rights record:

• Abkhazia tensions.  EU External Relations Commissioner Benita-Ferrero Waldner chastised Moscow for escalating tensions over the breakaway zone of Abkhazia during a speech to the Duma -- Russia's lower house of parliament -- on June 4.  Russian officials will no doubt recall that her visit was originally intended to lay the groundwork for the EU-Russia Summit, a sign that the EU will not overlook persistent Russian-Georgian difficulties as it seeks to define its relations with Moscow.  The Kremlin, meanwhile, has not responded favourably to EU High Commissioner Javier Solana's June 5-6 visit to Georgia -- including Abkhazia -- perceiving it as a sign of unnecessary European involvement in what Russia considers its traditional sphere of influence.
• Progress on human rights?  European criticism of creeping authoritarianism under former President Vladimir Putin had been a constant irritant in the EU-Russia relationship.  However, human rights and rule of law are two vehicles that Medvedev has used to publicly distinguish his policies from those of Putin; in recent weeks, the Kremlin has blocked a law on media restrictions and dropped politically motivated charges against the leader of a prominent civil society organisation.  However, the EU will probably be wary of heaping too much praise on Russia's new leader, as it remains to be seen whether his apparent liberalisation is a mere public relations ploy.