EU-Russia summit in Kanty-Mansiysk (Siberia)

The EU-Russia meeting in Khanty-Mansiysk is over, amid talks of inconclusiveness and wishful diplomatic liturgy. I would try to shed some light on what the outputs may be.

The meeting was meant to discuss sensitive strategic and economic issues, notably Georgia situation, Eastern Europe NATO missile shield, EU energy Policy and a new Partnership Cooperation Agreement.

It has been prepared as the Slovenian presidency final Foreign Policy firework, much like the Central Asian states meeting at the end of German EU presidency of last year.

The primary output is the agreement on beginning the negotiation on a Partnership Cooperation Agreement, i.e. negotiations are barely set to start in July 4th.

The former PCA expired in 2007, and a new drafting was then blocked by Poland. The Veto was officially meant to frustrate Russia due to trade confrontation following the ban of polish meat in Russia. However it was also suggested to be a signal to EU and its supposedly bossy attitude towards Poland.

As for an energy treaty, alas the Siberia meeting has not brought appreciable results. Europe voiced her interest in free access to Russian energy resources and obtained an educated positive answer. In these bargains, however, Russia tries to maximize its benefit by asking for a share of distribution networks, as was the case with Greece and Serbia. The argument of mutual energy dependency has been severely blunted as Russia is thinking of diverting resources to Asia., following mere economic considerations. China and India are as a matter of fact as interesting clients as EU, calling for a far more complication-free treatment. To tie Russia to EU, this is no path.

On the other side, the summit made clear the possibilities of smooth cooperation in terms of economic, environmental, social projects. An example is the implementation of an electronic customs system in Finland and Russia to ease cross-border commerce. The projects is framed in the Northern Dimension, an Organization parallel to EU that is focused on more concrete matters, as to promote cooperation in economic, environmental, social, and security matters.

This is the reciprocative ground where to build a neighbouring policy. Basically Russia needs EU technology to diversify its economy, meeting EU interests in the form of FDI and Joint ventures.

The argument is that Russia needs to diversify its economy rather than simply tying its resources to EU.

We should see if the message was understood in the July 4th Brussels meeting.