By Anne-France White - 27th November 2006
The EU-Russia summit has yielded few results amid a continuing Polish-Russian trade row.
An agreement to scrap the fees charged by Moscow on airlines crossing over Siberia was the only highlight of a lacklustre meeting.
Trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said that the agreement on fees, which cost EU airlines more than €250m in 2006, showed that “the EU and Russia can resolve their differences through negotiation when they want to”.
The EU had said it would block Russia’s proposed entry into the WTO next year if the over-flight question was not resolved.
But the launch of partnership talks with Russia – the intended focal point of the meeting – did not go ahead because of Poland’s continued veto.
Warsaw is continuing to uphold its veto on the launch of the talks as long as Russia does not lift a ban on Polish food imports.
During the summit, commission president José Manuel Barroso appealed to Russia to lift the ban, saying that the measure is "disproportionate".
But EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner insisted that EU-Russia relations had not been “harmed” by the Polish veto, and that negotiations over the energy charter would continue regardless.
As for Russian president Vladimir Putin, he declared himself disappointed that the negotiations had not been launched.
"I deplore the fact that we haven't started work,'' Putin said after the meeting, adding that "Russia is prepared to launch these talks".
The Polish veto has angered the German government, which is preparing to take over the EU presidency in January 2007.
“This development is very regrettable, because the negotiations were intended to be a focal point in the first half of 2007,” Gernot Erler, the state minister at the German federal foreign office told the paper.
“But we are not giving up the idea,” he added.
Germany is pressing the Finnish presidency to achieve a compromise on the Polish trade issue before the EU summit in mid-December.
In case the Finns are unsuccessful, the issue is expected to feature prominently at the meeting of French, German and Polish heads of state in Saarland on December 5.
Poland’s standoff with Moscow is a setback for Berlin, which is pushing for stronger links with Russia – notably in the energy sector.
This is not the first time the two EU countries have clashed over Russia.
Germany is planning to build a gas pipeline from Russia, but Warsaw is opposing this on the grounds that it would increase the EU’s energy dependence on Russia.
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