Zee Beam News

// The price of the question
June 03, 2008- Kommersant - Andrey Gudkov, Deutsche Welle, Bonn - The year and a half standstill in relations between the European Union and Russia will end at last. A week ago, a mandate was approved in Brussels for negotiations on a new basic agreement, and the negotiating process will begin in Khanty-Mansiisk in three weeks. Naturally, as that meeting approaches, the sides will use any means available to them to make their case and grope toward a settlement of disputed issues. The political and economic forum in Riga is important, but not key, platform for the conciliation of positions. It is not a Baltic regional problem, but a partnership between the EU and Russia. That partnership needs a new foundation in the form of an agreement that corresponds to modern reality and the perspectives for the next ten years. The previous basic agreement was worked out in the mid-1990s, when Russia and the EU (and the entire world) were different. The fact that Khanty-Mansiisk, the capital of Russian oil and natural gas production was chosen for the summit is eloquent testimony of those changes. In that Siberian (and thus Asian) city, the Europeans and Russians will begin to lay the bases of their future relations. Is that not a symbol that the energy problem has become the key topic in cooperation between Russian and united Europe today? That is why the price of the question for Europeans in the working out of a new basic agreement is the energy security of the EU and, in essence, all of Europe. In that situation, the most important stop on the way to Khanty-Mansiisk is not Riga, but Paris, where Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was last week, and Berlin, where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will make his first European visit next week. Energy security is an especially crucial issue for Germany. First because it is the largest consumer of Russian energy resources in the EU. Second, because the dependence of the largest economy in Europe on foreign suppliers will only grow in the future due to its refusal to use atomic energy. Third, Berlin traditionally gives great attention to the interests of its Eastern European neighbors. And they depend on Russian energy supplies even more than the Germans. So the new basic agreement and its energy sections will be almost the main topic in talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Medvedev next week. Acting in its own interests and in the name of the EU, Germany will push for a guarantee from Russia that the agreement reached on deliveries of oil and natural gas will be fulfilled without interruptions and that Russia will not turn off the pipelines for political reasons or because of conflicts with its neighbors.