Examination of Witnesses (Questions 269
- 279)
THURSDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2007
Mr Eneko Landaburu, Mr Gunnar Wiegand, Mr Paul Vandoren,
Mr Frédéric
Q269 Chairman:
Good afternoon, Mr Landaburu. Thank you very much for finding
the time to give vidence to us today. I know you have a very
busy afternoon, but you are going to be able to be with us for
the first part of our time here and you are going to be accompanied
by some of your colleagues. We are one of the Sub-Committees of
the House of Lords European Union Committee which is responsible
for looking at problems of external policy, defence and development.
We are carrying out a thematic study on the European Union's relations
with Russia. We have taken evidence in London from a number of
people who know a good deal about Russia and we are going to Moscow
in December where we are seeing people there who know about it,
but we felt it was absolutely essential that while we were in
Brussels we should be able to see people from both the Commission
and the Council to talk about the way in which you saw the development
of our relationships. I am here with three of my colleagues from
the Committee. We would like to take our evidence formally and,
therefore, we are taking a note of what is being said, but if
at any stage you feel there is something you would rather say
to us privately, please would you indicate that and speak off
the record and we will then stop taking the note and that will
not be published with the report of the meeting. We will be sending
you a copy of the transcript in a few weeks' time for you to be
able to make small corrections. We want to avoid any misunderstanding
about what is on the record, and for us to be able to use formally
in evidence, and what is not. Would you like me to begin, even
though perhaps one or two of your colleagues are not yet here?
Maduraud and Mr Lars-Gunnar Wigemark
Mr Landaburu: Please.
Q270 Chairman:
We would welcome your views as to what should be the fundamental
objectives of European Union policy with regard to Russia, and
in which areas do you feel relations between the European Union
and Russia have made the most progress in recent years?
Mr Landaburu: Thank you very much indeed. First
of all, I would like to welcome you to Brussels and to this Directorate
General. We are very honoured to receive you. I would like to
say that the subject of your inquiry is a really challenging,
very topical and very important one. Speaking more generally,
we highly appreciate your reports here in general. I am sure that
we will read this one with interest when it is finalised. I know
about the rules, that you are transcribing all of what we say,
but maybe during this conversation I will give you some personal
opinion and I would prefer to do that off the record, as you proposed
to me. My colleagues are coming very shortly. It is the team dealing
with Russia. Mr Gunnar Wiegand is the head of this unit and he
is the Acting Director for Russia now. As I will have to leave
you at some point, Mr Wiegand and other colleagues will remain
at your disposal to continue the talks and the debate. We have
also an information pack which you may find useful for your work.
Before going to the specific questions, I would propose to make
an opening statement, first of all, in a nutshell, on the main
assessment we are doing as far as our links and relationships
with Russia are concerned and then, of course, we will come to
all the questions you raise and will try to answer them. Some
of them are very, very precise and focused and difficult to answer,
but we will try to do our best. If I had to define in a word the
relationship we have with Russia, I would say that this relationship
is complex and there are many reasons for that. The first is that
Russia is a neighbour but, at the same time, it is a strategic
partner. What does strategic partner mean? Strategic partner means
that they are among our most important partners in the world.
We have only eight strategic partners in the European Union: the
United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, Russia and now China and
Brazil. This means that with those kinds of countries we want
not only to develop our relationship, to strengthen our co-operation,
to deepen our links but, at the same time, we want to raise with
them some horizontal issues at international level in order to
try to be part of the solution to those big questions. I am referring
to climate change, energy, security, poverty, disease questions
and these global issues, so Russia is one of these partners. The
second reason why our relationship is complex is because we are
still living with the consequences of what was in the past the
Soviet Union. The enlargement process, which was very successful
for the Union the last time, of course provoked some kind of reaction
from Russia. We have to manage this kind of shock for them to
now have in the European Union a process of sharing our values,
our principles with a lot of countries that were under the control
or the influence of the Soviet Union. More than that, some of
them were inside the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries. This
provoked a political and psychological difficulty which explains
some of the difficulties we have in our relationships. Another
reason why our relation is complex is that this country has changed
a lot over the last few years, and we come from the economic and
political catastrophe of Yeltsin to a new-found assertiveness
on the crest of high energy prices. This is very different from
where we were some years ago at the beginning of the mandate of
President Putin and now and this, of course, has provoked some
dramatic changes in our relations. Another general point I would
like to outline is that there is a paradox in our relationship.
Our trade and investment is booming. We have very strong energy
interdependence. European businesses are rushing to the Russian
door and there are huge profits made in the Russian market. I
had a meeting yesterday with some representatives of our European
firms in Russia and despite a lot of difficulties, of course,
they are making a lot of money and are doing a lot of business.
This is a trend which is booming but, at the same time, we are
going to have more and more difficulties with our relationship
and dialogue at a political level. This is the paradox of where
we are. What are the difficulties? First of all, of course, in
expressing our concern on the implementation of democratic principles
and human rights. We were concerned with the limitations placed
on OSCE observers to monitor the Duma election. We know it was
an awful decision and this is not very positive. We are not happy
with all the limitations on press freedom, attacks on journalists,
pressure on NGOs, not to mention the situation in North Caucasus.
This global development of democracy, or lack of democracy in
a certain way in Russia, is something which is difficult. Why?
Because some years ago we tried to set up our relationship on
the basis of sharing the same values and principles. What we have
to consider is that maybe we have not got exactly the same kind
of values or principles. This is why we need to assess the situation
for the future. What are the bases of our relationship? What do
we share? What do we not share? What do we need to do? These are
important questions for the future. Of course, the EU does not
seek to lecture Russia, we have no monopoly of democratic principles,
but it is really important to continue to discuss all those important
issues in the future. The other difficulties come at an international
level, for example Kosovo. I mention that because it is a very
topical issue. There it is obvious that we are going to have a
difficulty with Russia. I remember two years ago at the Helsinki
Summit that President Putin mentioned the point and told us, "Take
care with Kosovo because if we accept the independence of Kosovo,
this will have some consequence on our relationships to deal with
other kinds of frozen conflicts". Of course, he explained
to us that so far we had agreed to defend the principle of territorial
integrity against the principle of expression of self-determination
and if we changed the application of those principles, this would
have some consequences in Abkhazia, he did not mention specifically
the point, but we understood what he meant. We cannot say that
we are surprised by what they are doing now through Mr Lavrov,
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the others because they mentioned
this. Nevertheless, as I do not expect they will accept any kind
of resolution at UN level, we will have to try to make a deal
with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-moon,
in order to see which way legally we can support some form of
independence. This is my own feeling. Russia has linked Kosovo
with the frozen conflicts. If in South Ossetia, in Georgia, there
are now better expectations, it is not exactly the case of Abkhazia
where they are stronger and it is difficult to see any kind of
solution in the short-term, as in Nargorna-Karabakh in Armenia.
Those would be the questions of friction. On other important international
issues we are not exactly on the same line; Afghanistan and Iran,
we know what is happening now. With Burma, we are trying to work
in the same direction, but there are still some differences. There
is a third main point that I would like to mention. The first
was the paradox, the second was the international questions, and
the third is energy. Energy is a key issue for us and for them
also. We are weak there because we have no European policy. We
have an accumulation of national energy policies, we understand
that, it is a fact, but the lack of strong European policy, as
a consequence, has weakened us a lot. With the Russians, if we
are united we are strong; if we are divided we are very weak.
There is competition among a lot of our Member States. This does
not help building up the conditions for Europe to speak with one
voice, able to better defend the interest of all of our members.
This is the position of the Commission and it is why we proposed
a comprehensive legislative package some time ago which will promote
the capacity of having a united voice and, in our view, better
defend the interests of all of us. We are discussing the fact
that the Russians have not reacted in a positive way to some of
the proposals included in this package and we will continue to
work in that direction. The fourth point I would like to mention
in this introduction is the movement of people, it is another
big and important issue. As you know, we have visa facilitation
and re-admission agreements which entered into force on 1 June.
Now we have a tool, an instrument, in order to co-operate and
try to implement a policy on the mobility of people. This is not
perfect at all. We will need to improve the provisions of these
agreements a lot. Russia is pushing to have the free movement
of people without visas. We are a little bit reluctant because
we have to take into consideration a lot of elements, including
security. I have to say, the situation is much better than it
was some years ago because now we have something. It is not perfect,
but it is a way to progress. I would like to say as well something
on solidarity. Solidarity for us is very important and it is linked
with the united position. On this very difficult issue of launching
the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement, blocked by a trade
problem with Poland, the Russians had to accept our position because
Europe had a voice, a position, and this was expressed by Chancellor
Merkel and President Barroso at the EU-Russia summit in Samara,
Russia. Then we were expressing solidarity with our Polish friends.
This is what we need to develop in the future to strengthen our
position, there is no other way. I would like to conclude this
introduction by mentioning three issues. We succeeded in putting
in place the co-operation through four spaces. This co-operation
is going well and now we have a lot substance. There are difficulties
in all of the spaces but, nevertheless, we are progressing and
this is a stable thing that we have in front of us. In my view,
we need to launch the negotiations on this Partnership and Co-operation
Agreement as soon as possible because this will provide us and
the Russians with an adequate framework which we need in order
to have a real negotiation process, including the energy question.
In my view, the energy question will be solved or will improve
with this global framework and this is important. The question
of the WTO accession of Russia is another important issue because
all of us have an interest in having Russia among the members
of the WTO. The PCA that we have today as a framework is not working
well and that is why it is useful to have a new one for one main
reason. There are a lot of reasons, but the main reason is we
have no structure for implementing this agreement which is able
to deal effectively with the problems we have to solve. Russians
always want to politicise all the questions and raise the questions
at the level of ministers, but it is impossible. There is a lack
of a level of officials group in order to be able to solve a lot
of difficulties. This would ease it a lot and for the next time
it would be very important question. I would like to make my last
remark off the record (There followed a discussion off the record)
Chairman: Mr Landaburu, thank you very
much indeed for a very full introductory remark and we note that
those final remarks have not been recorded and, therefore, will
not be in the transcript. If I could turn to Lord Hannay and ask
him if he would like to follow up some of the things you were
saying on the institutional arrangements.
Q271 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
I would like to focus on the institutional arrangements, although
I think you have given us the beginnings of answers to some of
the questions. How well does the current institutional framework,
the PCA as it is now, work and how well do the common spaces work?
You spoke quite enthusiastically about common spaces. How does
the Northern Dimension work? What are the strengths and weaknesses
of this current institutional framework, and in what way could
it be improved? Are there other mechanisms and structures for
co-operation with Russia? We will come on in later questions to
the Energy Charter which is there. All that leads to a question
which I would like to ask, and I think you are right in saying
that this is, as our American friends would call it, payback time
for the Russians. They are paying us back for what went on in
the 1990s, for which they were largely responsible themselves,
but they are still paying us back for that. Does it make sense
to run after them in the context of a new PCA? Does that not simply
encourage them to go on paying us back in a fairly unpleasant
way? Is it realistic to talk about a negotiation of equals with
a country that considers that the only equal in the world is the
United States, an illusion which they still seem to nurture?
Mr Landaburu: I will try to provide some elements
of the answers and I will ask my colleagues to add some additional
comments on that. Lord Hannay, for me what is really crucial,
if it is possible to have an equal partner relationship in the
future, is to be sure that we are interdependent because we need
to have a good relationship with our big neighbour and we need
the energy which comes from there. We have to try to set up this
condition of equal and fair partnership. From their side, they
need to have a stable, mature and clear agreement with us in order
to be sure that they will have the resources to set up the conditions
of their growth. They have no alternative if they want to progress
as a big important and modern country. They need to have our investment
and our technology and they need to deal with the European Union,
which needs to have a good relationship with Russia. That is my
first remark. My second one is that this team of President Putin,
and probably the successor of Putin, has made the strategic choice
to have a good relationship and to increase the relationship with
the EU and its Member States, with the western countries, because
they are also Europeans. Despite all the difficulties we have,
at the end of the day it is much easier to have an agreement with
them than with a lot of countries very far away. We have the same
roots, a common culture, not in everything, but we share a lot
of things. Despite the differences of our political personnel,
there is a strong capacity to set up something. In my view, this
is why we have to try to find a specific way to have a relationship
with Russia and not always follow what Washington and the United
States are thinking, because they have other kinds of problems
and we do not have exactly the same. This does not mean that we
have a different kind of approach, but maybe an autonomous one.
In my view, it is not by developing assertiveness and aggressiveness
that we will have some positive consequences in our defence of
our interests with Russia. It is obvious that today there are
different sensitivities in the European Union among Member States.
It is obvious that the new Member States coming from the Soviet
Union influence are much more aggressive. Maybe they want the
European Union to have a much stronger position. The western countries
and the big ones, the UK, Germany and France, in a certain way
are much more pragmatic in defending their own interests. What
we need to do is to define some strategic objectives and to try
to convince all of our Member States to have this common approach.
As far as the PCA is concerned, of course we are progressing a
lot in the implementation of the four spaces. We are making a
lot of progress, but I do not think the structure of this PCA
is an adequate structure in order to make the progress that we
need to. Maybe my colleagues will have a lot more concrete knowledge
on this.
Q272 Chairman:
For the record, perhaps they can introduce themselves when they
make their first intervention.
Mr Wiegand: My name is Gunnar Wiegand. I am
the head of the unit for Russia and also Acting Director for Eastern
Europe, Southern Caucasus and Central Asia. To complement the
answer given by the Director General on the Partnership and Co-operation
Agreement, it was obviously negotiated at a time when Russia was
in a particularly weak situation and we were providers of massive
food safety assistance and technical assistance to help in the
transition process, both in the political and economic transition
process. Therefore, it was a Russian wish to change the agreement
and have a different agreement, taking into account the new realities.
At the same time, since the conclusion of the negotiations in
1994, and the entering into force in 1997, also a lot has happened
on the EU side in terms of our deeper integration. Therefore,
there is an objective interest on both sides already for political
and institutional reasons to have a new framework. In addition
to this there are very concrete interests which the Director General
referred to for both sides. It is not only the interests of energy
security of supply, it is also the interest of energy security
or demand. It is the interest of modernisation and diversification
on the Russian side, and on our side it is the interest in new
trade and investment opportunities for European companies. While
this is a very good, solid framework agreement, it has no preferential
access and it has no rules on deep economic integration, which
can only be done by a free trade agreement of a very modern type
to be included in a new post-PCA agreement. We have no specific
provisions at all on energy issues, and we will come to the difficulties
later on as regards the Energy Charter Treaty, I would argue,
to complement whatever exists at a plurilateral level with bilateral
provisions. Beyond the strategic and institutional considerations,
there are very concrete economic considerations which argue for
entering into such negotiations. I think on this one, also, we
have a unanimous position of all of our Member States being in
favour of it because we have an agreed mandate which covers a
very ambitious comprehensive agenda agreed at the level of Coreper,
but not yet agreed at the level of ministers. In the meantime,
however, the problem with the institutional structure of the PCA
is that the Russian side perceived that it was not delivering
the results that the agreement was designed for. Notably, the
Co-operation Committee was disbanded and also the one Co-operation
Council existing at the time was replaced under the common spaces
concept with a series of permanent partnership councils which
allowed different sector formations of ministerial meetings. The
problem is that our civil servant senior level which would have
an overview over all the areas of this relationship, simply does
not exist anymore and there are no regular meetings between the
people who have an impact in their own system and on the overall
relationship. However the common spaces are much more successful
than is commonly known and it is probably our fault that we do
not make this sufficiently known. The info pack will give you
a lot of information about what is happening. Just to give you
an idea, alone under the common economic space there are about
40 specific dialogues, including a number of sub-groups which
have been established, ranging from an investment dialogue to
seven different dialogues on industrial standards in certain key
areas like, for example, the automotive or chemical industry.
The purpose of all this is to lead towards regulatory convergence
and to prepare, therefore, for future negotiations on deep economic
integration. There is a lot of simply getting to know each other,
the actors in the different ministries or DGs here, the knowledge
about the legislative situation as it is now, how you regulate
industries, and there is a strong wish on the Russian side to
know how it is done in Europe because 52% of their exports currently
go to our market. Finally, on the Northern Dimension, that is
even less well known but that is a real success story. I have
just come from a senior officials meeting we had yesterday in
St Petersburg and we have a very satisfactory and co-operative
situation there. As the Deputy Foreign Minister Grushko said yesterday,
"It is about projects, not policies". We have a well
functioning partnership on environmental protection. We have also
an increasingly well functioning partnership on social issues
and health. Next year we will establish, if the ministers will
agree, a partnership on transport and logistics, helping to develop
the northern axis of the EU interconnections between the north-west
and the north-east of our common continent. We will also go into
the area of energy efficiency and cultural co-operation. There
is a huge number of stakeholders in all this. It is not a centralised
top-down process, it is a decentralised bottom-up process and
that works very well. A lot of funds of international financial
institutions could be mobilised through project grants.
Q273 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
Can I mention one slight paradox. With the United States, the
European Union has never had a structure of this sort and most
people would say that is one of the reasons why the relationship
in the economic field with the United States is such a successful
one, why investment flows grow and grow and why regulatory convergence
can be achieved and so on. Why should that not be so with Russia?
Mr Wiegand: I had the privilege of being head
of the unit for relations with the US for several years. We worked
closely with Lord Brittan and his successors in getting ever closer
transatlantic relations in the economic field. You had recently
at the last EU/US summit another major effort to deepen our ties.
It remains by far the most important economic relationship. Still,
we have a situation where very often companies have to produce
according to two different sets of rules and incur heavy costs
for this. Apart from the fact that the United States is not a
physical neighbour and we do not have as much untapped potential
as we have with Russia, there are two key differences. One is
that the United States is a member of the WTO, Russia is not a
member, therefore we have an interest in creating bilateral rules
with Russia and making sure that our markets can integrate. The
other reason is that the investment relationship is by far the
most important one in the transatlantic relationship, with €1.4
trillion of investment stock compared with something like €39
billion between the EU and Russia. What a difference this is.
Since we have that difference, our companies basically produce,
having invested on the other side of the Atlantic, for the needs
of the respective market, while with Russia we are very far away
from that.
Q274 Chairman:
We learned today that the Russian mission here in Brussels to
the European Union is probably the largest mission of any third
country. How much of the business which you have been talking
about occurs here in an interaction between people in the Commission
with that mission, or how far does it occur in Moscow between
your delegation and Russian ministries? Is it people coming from
Russian ministries to Brussels and vice versa? How are the mechanics?
This is a very big mission. Is this an important factor in the
relationship?
Mr Landaburu: Giving you a more precise answer,
it is obvious that they try to have some deep links and deep co-operation
at the level of Brussels. The appointment of Mr Chizhov, who previously
had been Deputy Minister in charge of Europe for many years, as
Ambassador of Russia is something which is a very clear and important
signal. For the negotiation of the next framework agreement they
have appointed Mr Chizhov as the chief negotiator. This means
they want to have a lot of things dealt with in Brussels and from
Brussels. On our side, we would prefer to have contacts in Moscow
with the ministries and the people. This does not mean we do not
want to have a relationship with Mr Chizhov at all, but we have
a very important delegation there in Moscow, Mr Vandoren is the
number two of our delegation in Moscow. To do our work at a good
level and with some quality and to provide to our Member States
all the information they and we need, we need to be in close contact
with the ministries and not only have a relationship with Chizhov.
Of course, a strong delegation from Russia here in Brussels is
helpful as well to solve a lot of difficulties. When we prepare,
for instance, the summit, and we have two summits every year,
having some people who are able to take some decisions at this
level is very helpful and this eases the process a lot.
Q275 Chairman:
Can I go back to your earlier answer. You quoted figures, first
of all, of 1.4 trillion for the cross-investment with the United
States and 39 billion, but was that euros or was it dollars?
Mr Landaburu: Euros.
Mr Wiegand: We always count in euros.
Q276 Chairman:
I just thought since you were talking about the United States
you might be talking about dollars.
Mr Wiegand: The Russian mission to the European
Union has a bit more than 100 staff, of which I think something
like two-thirds are diplomatic staff. The Ambassador has four
permanent Deputy Heads of Mission, which is quite unusual, who
cover the four common spaces essentially. Indeed, I think their
basic reasoning had been, with the common spaces and the future
new agreement, that they would acquire a little bit of the functioning
of a Permanent Representation of a Member State to the EU. They
also call themselves "Permanent Mission" and that is
quite interesting. Certainly there can be no monopoly of contacts
via this mission as we have many contacts, but I think our delegation
cannot complain about a lack of need from our side of EU interaction
in dealing with the government.
Mr Vandoren: In the Delegation of the Commission
in Russia we cover everything which is on the scene in EU/Russia
relations, in particular with regard to the four spaces, obviously.
Q277 Lord Truscott:
On the four common spaces, do you find more engagement from the
Russians on some of the spaces they are more interested in and
less engagement on the area of common spaces they are less interested
in? I am thinking of the development of democracy and justice
compared with the economic space.
Mr Vandoren: In my view, the common economic
space works relatively well. In that context, we have a number
of road maps and dozens of working groups and dialogues which
do not necessarily lead to concrete results but, nevertheless,
do bring the relevant and competent officials from both sides
together to discuss all matters which are relevant on the trade
side. Clearly, with regard to justice and home affairs, there
is strong co-operation and there is also a strong interest on
both sides, as has been demonstrated by the signing of the visa
facilitation agreement and the re-admission agreement. There is
increasing good co-operation on matters in the fields of culture,
education, science and technology, research and development. I
would say that probably where it is the most difficult is the
common space on external security where, for almost obvious reasons,
at least for the time being, we do not see eye-to-eye on a number
of key issues and, therefore, the deliverables are less frequent.
Mr Wiegand: I would concur with this and would
like to say that the most successful in terms of actual deliveries
so far has been the second common space, which is on home and
justice matters. There is a very well functioning Permanent Partnership
Council, which includes also significantly not only the Russian
Ministers of Interior and Justice but also the key Presidential
Adviser in this area, Mr Victor Ivanov.
Mr Landaburu: They will meet here tomorrow.
Mr Wiegand: Certainly we have there an area
where there is strong commonality of interest to reach concrete
results quickly because there is so much impact on our trade,
travellers, businessmen, students and so on. The common space
with the greatest number of activities, however, and the greatest
number of people involved clearly is the common economic space,
where, again, I would say that there is huge interest on both
sides, but we do have a strong long-term common vision where we
want to go, that is deep economic integration. It is much more
complicated to reach results, therefore these dialogues need more
time. The growth area is the fourth common space, education, culture
and research. Research is an area which perhaps did not need the
common space because we have an agreement in this area with each
other. We had the Sixth Framework Programme and now the Seventh
Framework Programme. Russia is the most successful third country
taking up the possibilities of our research co-operation. Currently
there are 220 projects worth some €2.3 billion where the
Russians also put their own money in, so there is very strong
co-operation between our research communities. That is positive
and, indeed, that is Russia engaging in one of the areas where
it has major value-added. The reference to the external security
space, the Commission's only stake in this is the civil protection
area where we do have now a Memorandum of Understanding and we
want to further expand on this between our civil protection mechanism
and EMERCOM in Russia. You will certainly see colleagues in the
Council Secretariat, or have already seen them on this common
space.
Q278 Chairman:
We will be seeing them tomorrow.
Mr Wiegand: They will tell you tomorrow about
our intensive political dialogue on common neighbourhood related
issues where the Commission fully participates but is not in the
lead. The one interesting area where both sides have repeatedly
said, "We need to work together", is peacekeeping, and
colleagues will tell you more about this tomorrow. There is great
interest on the Russian side in this.
Q279 Chairman:
What will change under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership
Instrument? I know Russia is not a neighbourhood in this sense,
but would there be any change in terms of funds available for
Russia in the future under the new initiative?
Mr Wiegand. When we started our co-operation
with the Russian Federation we had the technical assistance instrument
Tacis and we started with annual volumes of support of something
like 120-130 million ecus at the time and it was support for transition
processes. It was a process where all kinds of potential beneficiaries
could come up to our Delegation, or the National Co-ordinating
Unit, and come up with ideas for funding and we had broad priorities.
This has changed a lot over the years, and particularly since
the beginning of this year we have the European Neighbourhood
and Partnership Instrument, which does not only include our ENP
neighbours but also Russia. The basic approach here is one of
financial co-operation, which includes co-financing from the Russian
side in a number of areas and to an increasing degree it means
ownership on the Russian side, it means projects are identified
together, but also the priorities in the programming phase are
fixed together. We have had good experiences in the programming
phase on the National Indicative Programme 2007-2010, which was
endorsed a few months ago by the Russian side. The phasing in
of the new instrument was a bit slower than we had expected, therefore
in the first year, 2007, we have not committed as many funds as
we wanted. We have the possibility of committing about €30
million a year. We did commit €17 million this year and next
year we would target something between €30 and €40 million.
The main emphasis in all this now is rather than providing assistance
to a country which requires our help to underpin the implementation
of the common spaces, plus specific support for Kaliningrad and,
complementary to this, participation in several cross-border co-operation
programmes. There is a total of seven cross-border co-operation
programmes which involve both Member States and Russia, from the
Bering Sea to the Black Sea, and that facilitates a lot of border
crossing problem solutions. On the project identification phase
we are also trying to work with the Russian side to a very detailed
degree, more detailed than in the past. To give you an example,
we would like to extend the idea, which we have successfully tested
in other industrialised countries, to establish a network of EU
study centres in Russia, not as creating something new but as
supporting Russian universities which teach European or EU studies.
For this purpose, we will conduct a feasibility study and call
for proposals from Russian partners, hopefully to start such action
within the academic year 2008-2009. What is interesting in co-operating
with the Russians on this side, and that is a new tendency, is
that our Russian partners wish to engage also with us in the other
direction. They would like to place the basic Framework Agreement
on conditions for the delivery of co-operation in a mutual context
and they would like to agree with us on framework conditions for
the delivery of Russian financial assistance for projects in our
Member States. In addition to this, we have an interest in seeing
Russia become an important international donor. In our political
dialogue, we certainly call Russia frequently to provide assistance
in managing regional hotspots, like Somalia, Sudan, Palestine
or other places. We think it is very important to work with Russia
on this.
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